Dragons' Teeth
by Nastrandir
Summary: Post-HOTU. After the Underdark, hunting trolls in the Greypeaks seems tedious, even boring. But when opportunities arise, Jaiyan and Valen find that the call of new adventure will bring as much danger as excitement.
1. Chapter 1

_This is a sequel to my HOTU story, Into the Shadows. At present, I imagine it won't be anywhere near as long. It will be a 'what-happens-after' kind of story, dealing with how Valen and Jaiyan (and Deekin) deal with being the former heroes of Waterdeep, as well as tying up a few loose character ends. I hope everyone enjoys where it goes, and forgive me for putting them all through the emotional wringer again. Of course, Bioware owns the characters and the locations, save for a handful that are of my own creation. _

_**Chapter One – Heroes**_

Jaiyan sprawled on her back and watched the shadows crawl across the ceiling above. Pale winter sunlight painted the low beams, and the air behind the half-closed curtains was crisp. Her shoulder throbbed, and her left ankle still twinged whenever she flexed it. Still, the angry group of trolls they had stumbled on earlier had proved surprisingly tough; the fourth had not fallen until Valen's flail had ripped its head clean off.

Afterwards, as late afternoon snow drifted down from low clouds, they had dragged themselves back to the village, only to be met by cheers and excitement and an embarrassing amount of admiration. Even after trying to tell the innkeeper that they had only _begun_ their incursion into the troll caves, Jaiyan had been roundly clapped on the back, handed a healing potion, and ordered to go and rest while more were brewed up. She slouched back against the pillows and grinned. Their first few days in this no-name, tiny village had been slow and quiet, and strangely enjoyable. Nestled among the slopes of the Greypeak Mountains, the village was hidden away from all but the most tenacious of trade routes, and boasted little more than a collection of farmhouses, a tavern, and a temple. Something about it and its simplicity reminded her of Hilltop, and she found herself wondering if as much snow fell here, covering the roofs and gables, and coating everything in pristine white.

At the tavern, they had been informed that the monsters menacing the outlying farms were mostly trolls. After borrowing the innkeeper's maps, the three of them ventured out into the misty afternoon, heading for dark caves that proved damp and cold and crawling with trolls.

A knock at the door jolted her out of her thoughts. "Is that you, Valen?"

The door opened, and he frowned at her. "Expecting someone else?"

"No, but I was wondering if it was going to be appropriate to yell something about being stark naked."

He snorted, kicked the door closed behind him. "But you're not."

"Do I hear a note of disappointment?" She grinned as he sat on the edge of the bed, and slowly slid her arms around his waist. "How's Deekin?"

"Serenading." He covered both of her hands with one of his. "The innkeeper's insisting on treating us to dinner."

"Because we bashed a load of trolls over the head?"

"Apparently."

She leaned the side of her face against his muscled shoulder, listened to the rhythm of his breathing. "You're not still worried, are you?"

"No, I…."

But he was, and she could see it in his face. Worried about how the villagers might react, seeing him stride through the door, all tall and fierce, with horns and a tail and a glare that could melt metal. "Valen, love," she said. "We've been here…how long? Five days?"

"Six."

"Six days. And they've hardly called the local mob in with pitchforks yet." She kissed his cheek. "Yes, they're just village folk. I'm sure they don't think you're normal. But they obviously don't care."

"And do you?" he asked, softly.

"What, care? Or know you're not normal?"

He chuckled. "Both."

"Of course I care. And yes, I know very well you're not normal. Next question?"

"But what about…" Another scowl creased his face. "What about if we go to another city, and something…?"

"Oh, is this another round of the dismal tiefling 'what-ifs'?" Jaiyan clasped his face firmly between her hands. "Stop. Now. Before I start flicking your horns so much it'll _really_ annoy you."

A faint blush spread across his cheekbones. "Is this meant to make me feel better?"

"Or thoroughly embarrass you. One or the other." She pulled his head forward, indulged herself in a deep, lingering kiss. "Should I make myself presentable?"

"A terrible challenge to undertake," Valen said, deadpan.

"Evil tiefling." She swatted at one of his horns lightly before raking her hands through her hair. Her fingers snagged against knots, and she swore.

Before she could start complaining, Valen caught her shoulders, and turned her away from him. "Let me." Gently and quickly, he smoothed her hair out, and drew a brush through the thick, trailing strands. He gathered the tresses back and divided them again, braiding them with agile fingers. "Is my lady satisfied?"

She twisted her head, felt the weight of the plait against her shoulders. "Not bad. For a man."

He snorted again. "My lady flatters me. Shall we?"

Downstairs, they discovered the taproom wreathed with smoke, and the door barred against the cold outside. Farmers and workers and drovers were packed onto stools and on benches, and the walls fairly rang with laughter and conversation and the clank of tankards against wood. Jaiyan eeled through the first archway, Valen close behind her, and paused until a quick glance towards the fireplace showed her Deekin. The little kobold was ensconced on the rug, a sheaf of parchment uncurled in front of him, and his lute in his arms. His fingers flicked out the odd, thoughtful note, while his gaze was fixed on the parchment.

At the bar, Jaiyan was accosted by the innkeeper, who was a tall, sandy-haired man. Too many bitter winters had quarried deep lines around his eyes, but his smile was ready and welcoming, and the ale he brewed had a malty, strong taste that reminded Jaiyan of the north.

"Lass, you're down." The innkeeper grinned and pushed two tankards across. "Find yourselves a seat, and let us know when you're both hungry."

She shrugged, a little self-conscious. "You know, all we did was chase a few trolls."

"And bring back their heads, and promise to go in again and finish the last of them." He shook his head at her. "Least we can do is feed you. It's not everyday we have heroes as guests."

She nodded, scooped up the tankard, and followed Valen to a corner table. She shifted her stool closer to him and groaned. "Heroes, is it? For cracking the skulls of a few stupid monsters?"

He shrugged wryly. "We can tell them about the arch-devil, if you want."

She shuddered. "No, thank you. _One_ searing rendition in rhyming verse was enough."

At the fireplace, Deekin launched into a wild, uneven ballad about a black dragon picking a fight with a group of red dragons and somehow surviving for seven stanzas. Valen stared at the kobold, chin on his hands. "Does he ever sing anything that doesn't have dragons in it?"

Jaiyan lifted her tankard and considered. "That one about the adventurers he was warbling a few days ago?"

"No…I'm fairly certain there was a dragon there, as well."

Dinner followed as promised, and she forgot to feel guilty, and decided instead to enjoy the beef and steamed vegetables and soft, almost-melting potatoes. While Deekin dived into his third offering, she glanced across at Valen, and saw that his shoulders were stiff beneath his tunic. His tail snapped against her shin, and the glare he occasionally turned on his plate was ferocious.

_That's not a normal stare. Not even for him. _"Valen?"

His gaze swiveled and raked across her. "I am fine."

She gave him a pointed look over her laden fork, but said nothing. She knew he found crowded rooms uncomfortable. He had seemed so much at ease in the wilderness, during the days they had travelled between Waterdeep and the Greypeaks, and part of her wanted to finish this troll business swiftly so they could venture back out into the wilds, where there were less people, and almost no one to stare at him.

Wrapping him in cloaks seemed to help little, since his horns were too obvious, even beneath a hood, and she wondered if his colouring prompted the stares as much as anything else. _That, or the huge flail that looks like it could take down a wyvern with one hit. Which it probably could. _

His tail flicked up and tightened around her knee, and she smiled. She separated the last of her mashed potatoes into rough squares, and noticed his intrigued glance. "What?"

"Does cutting it into squares help?"

"Oh." Heat flooded her cheeks. "No…but when I was a little girl, I used to try and make ramparts."

He blinked slowly. "You are very strange, my love."

"What? Once I even made part of a castle wall. With a goblin army attacking it. They were made out of carrots."

"I'm not sure I want the answer," Valen said. "But what happened?"

"Oh." She shrugged. "I ran out of potatoes, and Father told me to stop playing with my food and just eat it."

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Morning broke, crisp and clear, and with the ground all sparkling with frost. Half a league's walk out of the village, Jaiyan groused to herself and stamped after Valen. The tip of her nose was almost numb, and the hand around her sword hilt was cramped and aching. The last throes of a hangover roiled in the back of her head, and the pale sunlight spearing through the tall pine trees seemed unfairly bright.

"Hey, slow down," she called. "We've got much shorter legs."

Valen paused, breath ribboning between his lips. His green armour gleamed, and he had Devil's Bane braced across his shoulder. "I forget. Sorry."

She grinned and jogged to catch up, Deekin trailing along behind her. "Forgiven."

While the sun slid above the ice-rimed treetops, they retraced their steps to the caves. Deep prints were cut into the mud here, glittering with the frost, and rocks rose up from among thin swathes of grass. The trees rattled, and Jaiyan found herself thinking again of Hilltop, and how she had felt when Drogan had sent her out alone that first time, on the trail of a handful of goblins.

_Terrified, that's what_, she thought. _But that was before Undrentide, and the Underdark._

Black and yawning, the caverns were flanked on both sides with high rock ridges, and thick stands of ferns whispered against the stone. Jaiyan drew her sword, exchanged a quick glance with Valen. She took another steadying breath, wondered why she was so nervous, and stepped into the darkness after him. Deekin hopped behind her, with pale light glowing between his spread hands.

Inside, tall rock pillars vaulted up into the shadows, and Jaiyan tasted dampness and rotting leather. A white point of magelight floated up from the kobold's fingers, throwing harsh edges over boulders and loose gravel and the curving walls. Valen led, his flail braced in one hand, and that severe, cut-granite expression that she knew very well. Down a long stone corridor, and into a large, dripping cavern, and around a high pillar of rock, to where the trolls waited. Tall and rangy and with that odd, greenish skin that seemed to ripple beneath the play of the magelight. She tightened her grip on her sword and swallowed. Something about trolls, about the way they moved, all loose-jointed and gangling, made her spine prickle.

Valen launched at them, Devil's Bane snapping up and out. Behind her, Deekin sang, and the air whined. A fire spell whirred past her head, sank against the nearest troll's sloping shoulder. It shrieked, and flailed when Jaiyan buried her sword in its chest. She spun past it, raking the blade free, dodging the jet of blood. More fire spells followed, burrowing against the troll as it fell. Ahead of her, Devil's Bane thumped into another troll's head before arcing away and tearing through the side of yet another's throat.

Following Valen, rushing the odd troll that would dart around him, Jaiyan reflected that this seemed less like fighting and more like _work_. She twisted her sword, smacking aside one troll's questing fists, and plunged the blade into its stomach. When it screamed and toppled, another spell roared over her head. _Work,_ she thought. _The kind where if you get it wrong, you lose something important. Like your arm._

The flat of her sword thunked against another troll's chest, and she swore. She jerked aside as its claws followed. She ducked another swipe, and stumbled as her own impetus carried her too far to one side. Stumbling, she hurled herself away, and cringed when a large shadow swooped across her. She whirled, sword flicking up, and winced when the troll's head left its neck. She blinked through the hot, stinging spray of blood, and saw Valen, standing braced behind the troll's toppled corpse. "Oh…thanks."

"Are you alright?"

"Fine. I was day-dreaming."

He scowled. "In the middle of a _fight?_"

She shrugged, used her sleeve cuffs to mop away the blood. "Sorry. This stuff reeks."

"I know." He balanced Devil's Bane against his shoulder. "Are you sure you're alright?"

She nodded. "Yes. I was just thinking…doesn't this seem like work?"

"Isn't that what it is?" A wry grin creased his mouth. "Beloved, isn't that the point? Aren't we meant to be for hire?"

"I suppose." She stared down at the dead troll, at its slackened jaw and rolled-up eyes. "Do you think that's all of them?"

"Nope," Deekin said. "Deekin can _smell_ them."

Jaiyan frowned. "So can I."

"Deekin means _living_ ones, Boss."

She sighed. "Alright. Lead on."

They spent the best part of the afternoon combing through the caves, trailing large prints through the gravel, and surprising contingents of trolls. Some charged out of the darkness, while others fled and hid behind high columns, or between the folds in the rock walls of a deeper cavern. After lodging her sword in a troll's ribcage, Jaiyan shook blood off her wrists and mentally decided never to go monster-hunting again. "How much are they paying us for this?"

"Board and meals and a couple of hundred in gold," Valen answered. "I think it's a bit too late to reconsider now."

She wrenched her sword out and swore tiredly. "Then I suppose we start collecting heads."

A last, small group startled them when they launched out of their hiding-place behind a high rock shelf. After Valen had dived into the middle of the fray, and Jaiyan had seen far more troll blood than she ever cared to mention, they set about the unpleasant business of choosing heads.

She knelt over the tumbled body of a dead troll and eyed the thick sinews of its neck. "How many, do you think?"

"Half a dozen."

She lifted her sword. "You're carrying them."

Valen helped her bag the heads, and he did not complain when she tied four of them to his belt and firmly placed the last two in his hands. Outside, the twilight was cool and damp with low cloud. Frost already crusted the ends of leaves and branches and hanging vines, and the breath sawing into her lungs was cold. Even half-running to keep up with the tiefling's wide strides, the moon had long since risen by the time she spied the tavern, and the lights glowing behind the windows.

Beside her, Deekin shivered. "Boss, this be too cold."

"I thought you didn't mind the cold?"

"Deekin _copes_ with the cold," he said. "Deekin not _likes_ the cold."

And nor did she, not after Cania, and its unending white horizons, and its whirling snow and brittle, icy mornings that would steal breath and thought.

Valen slipped an arm around her shoulders and chivvied her towards the tavern. "Nearly there."

They stumbled in through the door, and Valen heaved it shut against the cold air. Shouted questions greeted them, along with wide eyes and demands to know how many trolls lay dead. Jaiyan pulled her cape tighter around her shoulders and wished her lips were not quite so cold. "They're…"

Valen unhooked one of the wrapped heads, held it up so that the light spilled across the damp cloth. "They're dead," he said. "All of them."

He threw the head across to the innkeeper, and ignored the barrage of questions that followed. He untied the other five, dumped them on the bar. Pleading exhaustion, he guided Jaiyan across the taproom, while Deekin raised his hands and declared that he would be happy to sing an ode to the brave deeds that had occurred in the troll caves.

Upstairs, leaning against the tiefling's welcome side, Jaiyan felt the feeling slowly seep back into her fingers. She let Valen walk her into their room, and watched numbly as he peeled her cape away, followed with her gloves and boots. He found the ties on her leathers next, and sat her in front of the fireplace while he added a new log to the nice blaze the maid had left.

"You know, you don't have to be my slave."

"I know." He gave the fire another prod with the poker and smiled. "Your fingers were like ice."

She hugged her arms around her knees. "I'm fine."

"You're not." He sat beside her, watched her sidelong. "What is it?"

"Nothing," she said.

"You're a very bad liar."

"It's just…" She lifted her gaze from the twining flames, looked up into his blue eyes. "I thought we were going to adventure together, and what are we doing? Killing trolls and getting cold."

"That _is_ adventuring."

She laughed slightly. "I just…Valen, when you promised to come with me, I thought it would be…"

"Different?"

"Better. Not like this. Now I think maybe you would've had more fun going back down to the Underdark."

He stared at her. "You don't mean that."

She shrugged moodily, and chewed at the inside of her cheek. _Not without me, but what exactly is here on the surface for you? No armies to lead or train, no prophecies to hope to fulfil, nothing except me and Deekin and the cold outside. _"Might have been more exciting."

"Why I'm here has nothing to do with trolls," he said slowly. "And has everything to do with you. Or should I rustle up an arch-devil to keep you occupied?"

"Hah. No, thank you." She leaned against his shoulder, played with the loose red ends of his hair. "It's just…you hate the way people look at you."

"Of course I do. But that doesn't mean that I want to be somewhere else."

"But…" She twined a thick crimson lock around her finger. "You're used to _doing_ things that matter. You know…saving drow, beating up devils, escaping Sigil, that kind of thing."

He laughed. "And I like _doing_ things with you." He frowned. "That…did not come out in quite the way I wanted."

She shot him a wicked smirk. "Sounds more fun."

His arms slipped around her, and he hauled her onto his lap, her knees on either side of his hips. "I am not dissatisfied, bored, or craving any kind of adventure that would probably involve you dying yet again."

Jaiyan pouted at him. "You died as well."

"Only the once. And not because I was smart-mouthing an arch-devil."

"I was _not_…" She took advantage of his closeness and captured his mouth for a quick, taunting kiss. "…smart-mouthing an arch-devil. And even if I _was_, I think he intended to turn me into a messy smear of charcoal anyway."

"Charming." His fingers slid into her hair, teasing against the back of her head. "Now, I suppose we should go back downstairs and talk about trolls."

She sighed. "If nothing else we can get paid."

Valen stood, pulled her to her feet after him. "Is it really that bad?"

"No." She raked a hand through her hair, tilted her head back to look up at him. "I'm sorry. I'm being…silly."

"My lady could never."

She threw him a sour look. "You lying, deceiving tiefling."

"You chose me." He grinned, ducked his head, and kissed her forehead. He clasped her hands, and gently led her back downstairs, into the heat and noise of the taproom. Trailing behind him, she let her gaze linger on his weaving tail.

That terrible, unsettling knot of uncertainty was still lodged somewhere behind her sternum. She _knew_ he would stay with her; she trusted him, entirely. _So why are you still worried?_ _Because why would a tiefling stay to be stared at and mocked and remarked upon when there must be other places that a tiefling could go, and not have those things happen? _

_Stop it. Stop thinking. _

Someone pushed a tankard into her hands, and she heard Deekin's voice, soaring over the commotion, as he fielded questions. She could hear the wind, howling around the gables, and the stable doors banging out in the yard. She leaned against the bar, with Valen beside her, and summoned up a grin for the innkeeper. "You brew a nice cup of ale down here."

"Had a lot of practice." Snowflakes billowed against the windows behind him, and he frowned. "You'll stay until the weather blows out?"

She nodded. "Wouldn't want to travel through that."

"Winter's always harsh up here." He shrugged. "You said you'd trained up in Hilltop?"

"Yes. Everything turns white the moment autumn gets cold."

"Well, you're welcome to stay as long as you need." The innkeeper folded his arms. "Any thoughts as to where you're going next?"

"Oh, I don't know." She looked at Valen, exchanged an unhurried smile. "Wherever the road takes us, I suppose."


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter Two – The North-West Road**_

Four days later, the worst of the storm raged itself out, leaving inches of snow on the ground and frost crackling against window panes and gables and the horse trough in the stable yard. Shivering in the early morning sunlight, Jaiyan reached out for the first piece of clothing to hand, found Valen's shirt, shrugged, and pulled it on.

Still lounging amid the rumpled sheets, he arched an eyebrow. "That is going to drown you."

"I just want to be warm enough to get across the room." She wrapped her arms around herself, and gingerly padded across to the basin. The water was icy, and made her gasp as she splashed a generous handful against her face. Still blinking, she dived back into the bed and curled up against the tiefling. "Maybe we should just stay in here all day."

He laughed. "Tempting. But I thought you wanted to head out?"

"I suppose." She cast a rueful glance at the gap in the curtains, and saw pale grey sky, and thin sunlight. She nuzzled her head against the crook of his shoulder, loving the warm, familiar feel of his skin. His hand slid around her waist, stroked. _Alright,_ she thought, _time to get up. Or you really _will_ be in here all day. _

With a certain amount of reluctance, Jaiyan dragged herself away from him and hunted for her clothes. She dug her tunic out from under the bed, and discovered most of her leathers pooled half beneath the chair. "How did these end up here?"

Valen grinned and scrubbed a hand through his loose hair. "Ah…you were feeling rather enthusiastic last night."

A sudden, unexpected blush flooded her face. She muttered something about deliberately seductive tieflings and finally found her boots, buried beneath her backpack. She dressed quickly, hating the brittle bite of the air. _Cania_, she thought grimly. _You always think of Cania when it's cold. _

"Beloved?" Valen's hands descended, gathering her loose hair away from her neck. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Just thinking." She smiled, and shivered when he traced his lips around her collar, to the hollow of her throat. "The cold," she said, quietly. "It makes me think of Cania."

"I know." He lifted her chin. "What can I do?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. It's just…"

"I know," he said again. Very gently, he leaned down and kissed her. "Are you hungry?"

"Mmm. Starving. Let's find Deekin." She buckled her sword belt on, settled the blade on one side of her hips, her dagger on the other. Her backpack followed, slung loosely over one shoulder, while she tried to ignore the lump of something badly packed that was already digging against her ribs.

Downstairs, they found the taproom half empty and the fire already blazing. Frost whorled across the large windows near the door, and the wind whining in through the tiny gap in the left pane was glacial. Already packed and prepared, Deekin sat at the table in the corner, with heaped plates of cheese and cold meat and newly-baked bread already laid out before him. "Boss! Deekin finished writing new song!"

"Really?" Jaiyan smiled as she sat next to him. She chose a think slice of warm bread, slathered it liberally with butter. "And what is it about?"

"Dragons," Valen muttered.

"Nope," Deekin informed them haughtily. "It be about treasure and rogues and sneakiness, though."

"Sounds great." She added a slice of cold beef. "You'll have to sing it next time we're at a tavern."

He nodded slowly. "Boss? Where we be going next?"

"Oh…north-east."

"Why?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Get down to the lowlands, and then think about where to go, I suppose."

Deekin nodded sagely. "Deekin likes that idea."

"Yes?"

"Yes. Then Deekin can wander and be bard and write about all the things he wanders past."

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They finished breakfast slowly, and Jaiyan hauled herself off to find the innkeeper. She finally cornered him in the stable yard, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, and his nose pinched red as he led a horse past the water trough. He looked up and grinned. "You're all away this morning?"

"That we are. Taking the north-east road."

"Well, good luck to you. Got your payment, did you?"

"Yes. Thank you."

He shook his head, blew cold air between chapped lips. "No, we should be thanking you and your friends. Keep safe on the road."

Mid-morning saw them marching along a winding path that curved slowly down towards the flatlands. They passed snow-shrouded valleys, and thick stands of dark trees rimed with frost. Underfoot, the ground was iron-hard, and Jaiyan recalled being rousted from bed before dawn to help her mother dig a basketful of potatoes from the cold earth. As the noon sun swung past overhead, pale and half-hidden, the track zig-zagged down between heaped boulders and patches of bare soil.

Another three days of walking took them down below the snowline, and when High Forest appeared on the horizon, dark and rustling, Jaiyan felt almost relieved. Most days they set up camp within easy reach of sunset, and she found herself enjoying the simple, almost relaxed feel to stepping off the wheel-rutted trail, propping up the tents, and not worrying about whether she managed to wake up before the stars faded again.

One idle, considerably milder morning, she lay flat on her back, staring up at the play of the branches overhead, while Valen cleaned his armour, and Deekin tidied away the dishes from breakfast. She rolled over, picked up a stray sycamore leaf, and brushed it against her lips.

She was about to speak when Valen's head lifted, and his tail snapped. "Do you hear that?"

She almost offered a sardonic comment about tieflings being too much like cats, but the set to his face was serious, listening. "What?"

"That." He was on his feet an instant later, heaving his breastplate on, clicking the catches closed. "Swords. Running."

Beside the packs, Deekin nodded slowly. "Deekin hear it too, now he thinks about it."

Jaiyan narrowed her eyes, and tried to hear something past the sighing of the wind or the branches rattling. "I can't hear anything."

"Getting closer," Valen said. "A lot of people."

"Alright." She pushed up to her feet, reached for her sword. "You want to investigate?"

Devil's Bane was already in his hand, and his eyes were narrowed and fierce. "I think we should."

A quick, quiet dash through the trees led them through rolling, small hills and past a dense stand of bracken. With Valen leading, they cut across the rise of a hillock, jumped a stream, and edged around the towering bulk of an ancient oak tree. Beyond, down another slope, Jaiyan saw figures flitting between the trees. This close, she could hear the clatter of metal, and the pounding of booted feet against the soil.

_Orcs_, she realized. Tall and broad and wielding axes for the most part, and closing in on a group of human travelers. Hemmed in from both sides, they were circling madly, swords up, while three men behind them fumbled with bowstrings.

Jaiyan glanced left, but Deekin was already there, his hands glowing while he muttered an incantation. Valen rushed past her, his flail swinging out and wide. He crashed into the line of orcs nearest, driving two back and methodically beheading the third. He spun, and the flail heads smacked into the next orc's skull. Jaiyan winced, dragged her gaze away, and eyed up an orc just to Valen's right.

Three arrows whirred out from behind the travelers, two sailing wide, and the third embedding in an orc's thigh. The creature staggered, and Jaiyan threw herself at him. Ducked the ragged sweep of his axe, and buried her sword in his throat. A spell screamed past her ear as she yanked her blade free, and another orc fell, writhing. She dived past the sweep of her next target's spear, and swore when she stumbled over a half-hidden tree root. She heaved herself onwards, used the momentum to throw herself away from the spear.

The orc followed up, brutally fast, and she yelped when the spear haft blurred past the side of her head. The blade of it sank into a tree behind her, and the orc snarled. She lashed out with one foot, hit the creature's wrist. When it staggered, its grip slackening on the spear, she darted in close and slashed its throat open.

The spear tumbled uselessly, and then she was turning, spinning to meet the next attacker. To her left, she saw Valen, mowing through the second line of orcs, his flail whirling almost too fast to follow. Given space to move, the travelers were up and inching forward. She heard the terrible, wrenching scream as one man collapsed, his chest gaping crimson. Another fell, cleaved almost in half.

Jaiyan swallowed, then rolled madly to one side as an axe scythed down. She turned, met the orc's oncoming rush, and groaned when his full weight slammed into her. Forced back three paces, and with her elbows shaking, she realized she had horribly misjudged her timing. Her sword was locked against the haft of the axe, and the orc's face was inches away.

With precious little options left, Jaiyan dropped like a stone. The orc growled, and she saw its eyes widen as it toppled. She rolled to one side and heard the axe bite into the ground behind her. Praying the orc was still shocked, she flipped around and brought her sword down. The blade sank into the creature's shoulder, and it cried out. The axe snapped up, and she jerked away. The orc lunged forward, and she let go of her sword hilt, threw herself back.

With her sword still bristling from its shoulder, the orc pressed on. She ducked one sweep of the axe, and yelped when the haft drove against her chest. She threw herself back, hit the ground hard. The axe sliced down again, and she hurled herself away. The whine of magic filled her ears, and she heard the orc scream. She turned, saw white light lancing into the creature's throat. She tore her sword out, and plunged it to the hilt in the orc's chest.

Not far away, Valen was chopping his way through the last four orcs. Jaiyan glanced past him, to where the travelers were milling. One of their archers swung round, and she saw him aim, the arrowhead fixed on the back of Valen's head.

"No, wait!" Panicking, she vaulted over the dead orcs. "Don't! He's with me!"

Sharp and cruel, the memory surfaced, _of Valen, lying on the ground, the bolt from a drow arbalest sunk in his chest. _

"Don't!" She jumped past a curling tree root, ignoring the surprised shouts from the travelers. Another orc fell, and Devil's Bane arced out at the next. "He's with me!"

She cannoned into the archer and drove her elbow into his side. The arrow loosed, bit harmlessly against a low-hanging branch. She wrenched the bow from his hands, glared at the rest of the travelers. "Don't even _think_ about it."

On the ground, breathing hard, the archer stared up at her. "He's a…gods, look at him."

"He's with me," she snapped. "Hells, can't you _see?_ He's _killing_ the orcs!"

Valen kicked one orc away, leaped back in time to meet the other two as they charged. The first he sent sprawling with an elbow to the throat, and the second dropped after Devil's Bane took off half his head. The tiefling whirled, and his impetus sent the flail thunking into the other orc's face. He wrenched free, and his last, concise motion sliced the flail across the last creature's throat.

"_Now_ do you see?" Still seething, Jaiyan leaned down, helped the archer back up to his feet. "Tell your people to stand down."

The archer's gaze flickered from the nervous travelers to the dead orcs, and the tiefling, and back again. "Weapons down," he said, his voice rough. "Weapons _down_."

There was an uncomfortable, terse moment, but they lowered their swords, and Valen let Devil's Bane hang loose from his hand.

"Alright." Jaiyan drove her sword point-first into the ground, left it there. "We're on your side."

The archer's gaze skipped past her, to where Deekin stood, his hands still crackling with magic. "A kobold…with _wings?_"

Jaiyan smirked. "That's right."

"When I see kobolds, they're usually coming by the dozen, and trying to turn me into a pincushion." The archer regarded Deekin sidelong. "So, you, the lizard, and…him."

"That's right," she said again. "How'd you run into orcs?"

He shrugged. "They ambushed us. Must've seen us days ago. I saw their tracks, but…I thought they'd gone up into the mountains."

"Alright." She looked past him, to where the rest of the travelers still stood. "Get your people away from this clearing, deeper into the forest. If these orcs had friends, this is the last place you want to be."

"Yes. You're right." The archer motioned to his companions. While they sheathed weapons and formed up, he gave Jaiyan an appraising look. "Just the three of you?"

"Yes."

"Why don't you come with us?" He grinned, and his face changed, lightened. "Least we can do is offer dinner to someone crazy enough to face off against orcs to help us."

She shrugged, glanced across at Valen. "What do you think?"

"Safety in numbers," the tiefling said. "I don't fancy wading through orcs every day we're near this forest."

"I agree." She looked back at the archer. "We'll stick with you for now."

While the travelers regrouped, and doled out healing potions, the archer retrieved his bow. "I'm Taylesh."

"Jaiyan." She gestured, and added, "This is Valen, and that's Deekin. Where are you headed?"

"Neverwinter." He slung his bow across his shoulders and sighed. "You wouldn't think it to look at him, but that brute of a man holding the huge axe is actually a merchant."

"You're his escort?"

"Supposed to be." Taylesh grinned again. "Thank you for your timely rescue."

Jaiyan snorted and pulled her sword up. "Anything for a free dinner."

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The moon rose over a half-hidden glade. Firelight threw jolting shadows over the high arches of old oaks and the backs of the six apprehensive sentries standing on watch, staring out into the darkness. Jaiyan sat beside Valen, lazily watching the fluttering leaves overhead.

He leaned a little closer, his red hair curtaining his cheeks, and murmured, "You don't trust them, do you?"

"Of course not." She shifted so that she was facing him, her head turned away from the dancing firelight. "Still, you were right. I don't like the idea of bumping into orcs every time we turn around."

"True enough." His tail tapped absently against the side of a log. "I cannot seem to become used to how bright the nights are here."

"You mean compared to the Underdark?"

"Compared to anything I remember." His gaze flicked up, lingered on the moon, and the glittering sweep of the Tears of Selune. "I mean…I remember being called to worlds or places where the night sky was black, and limitless, and there were no stars, no light."

"What did it feel like?"

"Unsettling." He rubbed a hand across his forehead thoughtfully. "I remember…I remember being called with the others, to a place where…I don't know where it was. But the sky was red, all the time. We were there four days, and the sky never changed. Four days for a battle, and the sky stayed the same."

There was an odd, dreamy lilt to his voice. A little perturbed, Jaiyan searched his face, saw that he was staring at some vague point in the trees. "What happened?"

"We won," he said. "And some of us returned."

There was so much she would never understand, she realized, and even more that she would never know; either because he no longer recalled, or because he simply would not tell her. She wondered again how many years he had lost to the Blood Wars, how long he had spent killing devils beneath strange skies. "Do you think if we went to a wizard, we could find out how old you are?"

Valen's forehead creased. "Does it matter?"

"Well, I'll know what to say to you on your birthday, for one thing."

His frown deepened. "But I…don't know when my birthday is, either. When's yours?"

"Late spring. Soon, I suppose. Except that spring always comes later in the mountains." She reached out, feathered a hand through his hair. "We could always just choose a day for you."

He blinked slowly. "Is it important?"

_Oh, good Gods. He looks so serious. _"No," she said lightly. "And stop looking so severe. It's not all that crucial."

"Oh." His eyebrows lifted. "I think my mother knew my birthday."

Jaiyan giggled. "I should hope so, too."

"Oh, very funny." He gave her an exasperated look. "I meant, she always reminded me of it."

"I've been meaning to ask for a while. What was her name? Your mother?"

"Is it very terrible that I don't remember?" There was a low, wrenching note in his voice. "I know what she looked like. I know what she sounded like. I even remember what she smelled like. But…I don't know her name. She must have told me her name."

"Oh, Valen." Jaiyan found his hands, squeezed. "It's not terrible. It doesn't matter. What _does_ matter is what you _can_ remember."

His gaze lifted, wide and pale and aching. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry." She gripped his hands tighter. "Or I'll force you to sit through Deekin's rendition of that ballad about the drow wizard and the succubus."

He laughed then, not at all forced. "That sounds absolutely terrifying."

"It was. You should have heard the kind of words he made rhyme."

Valen snorted. "And I thought he was so very innocent."

Somewhere nearby, a twig snapped, and Jaiyan looked towards the fire, saw the archer, Taylesh. "My watch?"

He nodded. "My apologies, but we lost five of us this morning."

"I understand." She squeezed Valen's hands again and pushed up to her feet. "That's never easy."

"No. And we've a way to go yet." Taylesh glanced past her shoulder to Valen. "Your friend can swap with whoever's on with you."

Jaiyan followed the archer past the fire, and across the glade. "You know, you can talk _to_ him. I promise he won't eat you."

"Sorry. Haven't seen many of his kind around."

The words were spoken lightly, even innocuously, but even so, she felt herself prickle. _Don't get angry_, she thought. _You're meant to be sticking with these people for a while. Get angry, and they'll leave you here, and you can spend ages slicing through orcs all by yourselves. _"So why's your merchant so important?"

Taylesh shrugged. "He's rich. On his way home, and wanted to cut through High Forest, so he hired us."

"How many of you?"

"Eight of us, and six of his own retinue. At least, that's how it was this morning." He led her up to the tree line, indicated the other five men standing on watch. "I don't trust those orcs to be all on their own, so I'm afraid I went over the top a little."

"Better safe than sorry, they say." She threw a glance at the sentries, at the nervous, tense way they stood, hands on sword hilts or plucking at bowstrings. The guilty thought surfaced, that drow would do this better, and quieter, and with far more subtlety. _Huge fire in the middle of the glade, six on watch standing there and twitching and jumping every time the wind blows, and the rest of them asleep. We are _asking_ to get attacked. Still, strength in numbers and all that. _

She remembered Drogan, rounding on her and Dorna one morning, after they had returned from tracking and hunting a pack of goblins.

"_You both _lit_ a _fire?_ What were you thinking? Were you _wanting_ to be skewered?"_

She had rolled her eyes at him, she recalled. _"We're here, the goblins are dead. What exactly is the problem?"_

"_The problem, lass, is that you might have invited every creature in that wood to come and share your dinner. Was having a hot meal all that important?"_

"_It was cold," she mumbled. _

"_I'm sure. So the next I send you out, maybe after orcs, maybe after bugbears, you'll light a fire when you get cold, will you?"_

_She exchanged a rueful glance with Dorna. "I suppose not, Master Drogan."_

"_No," he snapped. "No, you certainly will not. Not unless you want to find yourself pinned to some tree trunk somewhere. Still, you'll be warm when it happens, I suppose." _

"So." Taylesh regarded her sidelong. "What are you doing out here?"

"Just heading north-west. No particular plan."

"Just travelling?"

"So far." She settled her shoulders against the broad sweep of a tree trunk, let one hand rest idly on her sword hilt. "We came down through the Greypeaks. Still snowing up there."

"Always stays late on the ground there." The trees creaked, and he glanced out into the darkness.

She took the chance to study him properly, realized that he could not be much older than her. He was wiry beneath his fawn tunic, and his disheveled hair was thick and brown and touched his collar. "You been doing this long?"

He grinned. "What, chaperoning rich merchants? About four months now. I have to admit, it's less exciting than I thought it would be."

"What, a platoon of orcs isn't enough to get you riled up?"

"That'll stay with me a while." He shook his head slowly. "Well. I'll tell your friend when it's his turn to wonder if he's about to be ambushed."

Jaiyan watched him go, and tried to push back the anger that still simmered somewhere inside her. She exhaled sharply, deliberately, and let her eyes meander up, past the dark, fringed shapes of branches, to the sky above. _Maybe having a plan would have been better. Well, possibly, but then you would have actually had to _plan_ something. _

The tree pressed against her back, uneven and slightly damp. The night time air was alive with the breeze and rattling branches and the call of an owl, somewhere far away. As the flames died down, she found her attention wandering, and her gaze slipping back across the clearing to where Valen sat, statue-still. His hair looked deepest crimson in the light of the fading fire, and his blue eyes were hooded.

_He's over six feet tall, _she thought wryly, _probably weighs three times what you do, has enough muscle to bring down a wyvern single-handed, and has a temper that would scare a pit fiend. Why exactly are we worried about him again? _

Close by, branches creaked and whined. She lurched upright, glaring into the darkness. She saw the grey shapes of trees, and hanging vines, and a spray of ferns. _You'd think after spending all that time in the Underdark, you'd be able to see better, or something. _She squinted, and could make out little past the whorled base of a nearby elm. Sighing to herself, Jaiyan gripped her sword hilt a little harder, and resignedly prepared to settle in for a long night.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter Three – Uncertainty**_

Dawn brought thin, needling rain and another attack. A crossbow bolt sliced out of the gloom, sank into the neck of one of the sentries, and dropped him with barely a cry. Already up and pacing, Jaiyan looked past Valen's shoulder, heard the horrified shrieks of discovery as the other men on watch found the sentry's crumpled body. "Here we go again," she muttered.

More bolts followed, whipping out of the trees, sinking against the ground, or stabbing through the canvas walls of tents. Two more sentries fell, clawing at gaping wounds and trying to breathe through blood.

"Get back," Jaiyan called. "Get away from the trees!"

There was a horrible, scrambling moment while the sentries backed away from the treeline, and the other men formed up near the fire. Another hail of bolts showered out. Behind her, she heard Taylesh screaming for his archers to nock arrows and fire. She exchanged a grim look with Valen, and then the orcs swarmed out of the trees, and they were running to meet them.

There were more of them this time, she noted. Arrows flew thick and fast past her head, and four orcs collapsed, trampled into the mud by those charging behind. They seemed to be everywhere, tall and broad and snarling, huge axes swinging from brawny hands. Jaiyan stuck close to Valen, letting him carve a path through them. She stayed behind him, lashing out at any orcs who tried to cut in around him. The rain fell harder, slicking her hair to her scalp, and she could barely see. Something bright flared off to her left, and a spell sizzled past. She heard Deekin chanting shrilly, and the whine of unleashed energy.

A dark shape loomed up on her other side, and she jerked away. She swept rain out of her eyes, leaped back as the orc pressed on. Her heels hit the ground too hard, skidding on wet mud. His axe drove against the flat of her sword, numbing her arm to the elbow. She shrieked, jumped back further. The orc lumbered closer, brought the axe arcing down. She dived past it, and swore when the mushed-up ground gave way altogether. Landing face-down in mud, she spluttered and tried to roll over.

The axe thumped down, somewhere far too close to her leg. She lashed out with one foot, caught the orc a glancing blow to his stomach. She flailed through cold, slippery mud for her sword, could not quite reach it. The axe slammed down again, and she writhed away from it. _Now or never_, she thought desperately. _Turn over and deal with him, or he'll have you pinned to the ground and stabbed through the back and we think that's liable to really, really hurt. _

She found her dagger, dragged it free. She rolled back over, saw the orc heaving the axe high above his head. The rain pounded, and she could barely make out the detail on his lined, craggy face. Without thinking, Jaiyan lurched forward, raking the point of the dagger across the orc's shin, and around, into the calf muscle behind.

The orc screamed, and the axe juddered from his hands. She dodged away from it as it fell, sank into the ground. She pushed on up, plunged the dagger up and under the edge of the orc's leathers. Not stopping to see him fall, she scooped up her filthy sword and moved on, turning to meet her next assailant.

Despite the arrows sailing out in quick succession from Taylesh's archers, and Deekin's spells, and Valen charging full-bore at the next line of orcs, it was mid-morning before they fell back. Rain sheeted down, turning the footing treacherous, and making every step taken in combat a dangerous gamble. The orcs kept coming, pushing out of the treeline, stampeding forwards despite the mud. Fire spells seared across them, sending up coils of smoke as the rain fell. A final, deafening burst of energy cracked out, and Jaiyan saw the remaining orcs exchange apprehensive looks. Some agreement seemed to be reached, since they turned, and bolted back into the forest, lost beneath the curtaining rain.

Soaked to the bone, Jaiyan turned. She threw a tired grin across at Deekin. "Nice spell throwing, Deeks."

Rain dripped off his nose as he nodded. "Thanks, Boss."

She looked at Valen next, saw that blood twined through his hair, streaking down his face. "Are you hurt?"

He shook his head. "I'm fine." He reached out, touched a new, swelling bruise on her jaw. "Not broken?"

"No. Just going to be sore in the morning." She swiped water from her eyes, glared across at Taylesh. "We have to move, now."

He was leaning on his longbow, his hair flat on his head, and a wild, fearful look in his eyes. "But…there's more out there."

"Yes," she snapped. "And I do not think we should be here when they come back. I say we move, now, and try and gain as much distance as possible."

Taylesh's eyes flickered. "But I…"

"But nothing." She sheathed her sword. "Yes, I know you've lost people. But do you really want to stand around here in the rain just waiting for them to regroup and come at us again?"

His fingers fluttered around the end of his longbow. "Alright," he said, eventually. "Alright. I just…" He shook himself, and turned to motion to the rest of his men.

While Taylesh called for any undamaged tents to be pulled up and packed away, and for belongings to be properly stowed for travelling, Jaiyan leaned against Valen. "Were you expecting that?"

"Yes," he said, softly. "But I am wondering why they didn't bother with looting the tents, or raiding the bodies."

"Yes." She tipped the side of her head against his cold armour. Despite the rain, and the mud clinging to them both, his solid frame was wonderfully reassuring. "I always thought orcs were all about attacking travelers and making off with whatever they could carry. Not…."

"This," he finished quietly.

"Yes." She gazed past him, to the innocuous treeline, all rain-wet leaves and hanging branches. "Time for a few awkward questions, then?"

"Yes. Just as soon as we get a bit further away."

She nodded, then grimaced as she flicked wet mud off her sleeve. She hated the way her clothes pulled away from her damp skin, how her leathers felt clammy and chill. She glanced up at Valen again, and frowned when she saw the blood on his face was thickening. "Are you sure that's alright?"

When he grunted noncommittally, she grabbed the collar of his breastplate, pulled his head down. She ran her fingers through his hair, found a long, leaking gash along his head, near one of his horns. "You're gushing."

"It's the rain."

"I know you're tough," she said archly. "You don't need to pretend to be impervious to everything just to impress me. Go get a potion from Deekin." When he scowled, she added, "You're going to need to be able to _see_, you stubborn tiefling. Did you think of that?"

Valen growled, but he gave in, and let her clean the blood off his cheeks after he downed the healing potion.

The rest of the travelers had formed up, looking wide-eyed and sodden in the rain. Leaving the dead behind, they moved off, while the torrents still hammered down, and every step was a sliding, frustrating fight against the mud. Jaiyan trailed after Valen, her sword a heavy, cold weight at her side, and she wondered what the rest of the day might bring.

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Through pounding rain, over sloping, small hills, and through tall, dark trees, they walked, while the sky roiled overhead. Noon came and went, and they pressed on, following a narrow trail between high, hulking boulders and the arches of ancient ash trees. Underfoot, dead leaves were thick and wet. Streams surged around round rocks, thick and white with snow-melt.

Around mid-afternoon, as a tearing wind came in from the north, seething through wet clothes and rattling the trees, a hail of crossbow bolts dropped the three men leading the party. A quick skirmish followed, finishing with a dozen dead orcs, and Jaiyan's horrible realization that there were less than fourteen of them left. _And that's including me and Valen and Deekin. _Feeling ill at ease, she walked beside the tiefling and kept her gaze firmly fixed on the trees as they continued on. Her fingers were cramping around her sword hilt, and her shoulders felt stiff and uncomfortable beneath her leathers. She blinked rain from her eyelashes and reflected that the taproom back in the village seemed less and less boring as the day wore on.

The track led up a steep hill, under the lowering branches of oaks, and into another ambush. Afterwards, with her forearm bleeding too freely from a long gash, Jaiyan fretted while Valen loosened her sleeve cuffs and peeled them back. Around them, nervous sentries took up stations, and others argued about whether or not to risk a fire.

"This is deep." Frowning, the tiefling lifted her arm. "You've got muscle laid bare."

Deekin pressed a bottle into her hand, and she drank, shuddering as the oily taste slipped down her throat. "Wrap it up and I'll be fine."

"I saw it happen." Valen shook his head, unwound a length of bandage around her forearm. "You came too close."

"Yes, mother."

He tugged the bandage tight. "I mean it. I don't want to have to go back to Waterdeep and explain to Durnan how your head parted company with your neck because you were careless."

She grimaced. "You have a gruesome sense of humour sometimes."

"I wasn't joking." He tied off the knot, kissed the palm of her hand. "I prefer you breathing."

She flexed her wrist and winced. Overhead, clouds were rushing in, and the rain still fell, cold and constant. "Do you feel up to an interrogation?"

He followed her gaze, to where Taylesh jogged around the edge of the camp, checking injuries and weapons. "I think that might be a good idea."

They cornered the archer as he crossed back past the wagons, to where two more men were fumbling with damp canvas and pegs. "Tell them not to bother," Jaiyan called. "Everything's sodden and besides, if we get surprised again, it's just one more thing to slow us down."

Taylesh spun. His hands were white-knuckled around his bow, and his eyes flicked from her to Valen and back again. "Yes. Yes, I'll do that."

He shifted as if to move, but Jaiyan reached him faster, and clasped his wrist. "How about you sit down with us and have a quick talk."

He gulped down a quick breath. "The ground's wet."

"Stand up then." She felt his pulse thundering beneath her fingers. "How about you tell us what's actually going on, yes?"

"We've been picked out by a gang of orcs. Nothing out of the ordinary, at least for around here."

"Really." Jaiyan led him away from the men struggling with the tent, and walked him past the wagons again, to where an old log had tumbled across the ground. There, ignoring the mud and the slanting rain, she pushed him down and kept her grip on his wrist. "Start talking, Taylesh."

"We've just had a run of bad luck, that's all. Lost a lot of men."

"I know." She searched his pale, pinched face. "Forgive me for saying, but you seem more concerned about being attacked again than about your fallen companions."

"No, I…" His gaze jumped past her shoulder, to the whispering trees. "No, I've just…I've seen a lot of men die, these past two days. Afraid that'll happen again."

"Why?" she asked, point-blank.

"Well, we're a fair ways from anywhere, and if those orcs have the scent of us, then…"

"Then it stops making sense. Orcs don't attack mindlessly." She shook her head slowly. "They may not be too bright, but they're not _that_ stupid. We kill more of them every time. Why are they doing it? They're not even stopping to drag the bodies off for looting. What are they after, Taylesh?"

"Maybe they're just angry," he mumbled. "Because we killed their friends when they attacked us that first time."

"Orcs don't think like that. Small bands of orcs don't, in any case." She remembered her first lecture about orcs at Hilltop, when Drogan had sat her down, and told her in no uncertain terms that orcs could be laughably cowardly or terribly dangerous in equal measure.

_"Generally they'll not be doing anything more than robbing travelers, stealing from each other, and trying to stay alive in caves through the winter. But find yourself a clan-full of orcs with something on their mind, with a leader who can do more than just bash heads, and well…best start looking for the quickest way out of there." _

Taylesh chewed at his lower lip. "Look, there's nothing…"

Jaiyan sighed. "Stop lying to us. You've got a hell of a lot of orcs on your tail, and they're after something. What is it?" She regarded him again, saw how he twisted his hands together. "What are you carrying?"

"What?"

"Your rich merchant," she said. "What's he carrying?"

"Treasures," Taylesh muttered, too quickly. "Taking his jewels back to Neverwinter, isn't he?"

"Is he?" She let go of his wrist, noticed how his fingers were trembling. "Taylesh, if we're going to get out of this still breathing, I think we all need to know what's actually happening here."

The young man's gaze flitted across, away from her, fixed on Valen's implacable expression for a long, wrenching moment. "Look," he said, tentatively. "I didn't know. When I took this job, I didn't know. I was just part of the escort, you know…"

"I know," she said.

"He said he wanted protection through the forest. Said he was carrying things that might…draw the attention of others."

"What others?" Valen barked.

Taylesh almost flinched. "He didn't say. Not until… day before we met you, we were attacked, the first time. Only the one attack that day. Same as yesterday."

"And three today," the tiefling said flatly. "What are they after?"

"Well, day before yesterday, he told us to expect more of the same. He didn't tell the others, but he pulled me aside and told me he was carrying something that had been…procured from an orc warlord."

Jaiyan groaned. "So he stole something from an orc clan chief, and now every orc big and nasty enough to hold an axe is after it?"

Taylesh nodded slowly. "I think so. I don't know what it is, but…"

"You're lying," Valen said, softly. "Whatever it is, he told you, and it scares you. What is it?"

The archer shook his head. "I can't," he blurted. "I'm on…I can't. I'm sorry."

"Great." Jaiyan flicked the soaked end of her braid over her shoulder. "So we get to die for something terribly mysterious. Forgive me for not bristling with excitement."

"I'm sorry." Taylesh locked his fingers together. "I couldn't tell you. I just wanted…"

"To get out of here alive." Jaiyan nodded heavily. "Well, we share that sentiment at least. Alright. Go and get something to eat. You look like you're about to fall apart."

While Taylesh bolted, Jaiyan poked moodily at a spreading puddle near the log. "We always find ourselves in the very _best_ situations, don't we?"

One side of Valen's mouth lifted. "You wanted excitement, didn't you, my love?"

Deekin hopped up on the log beside her. "What Boss thinks the merchant carries? Gold? Diamonds? Amulets?"

"Probably the long-lost magical rolling pin of some orc warlord's overbearing mother-in-law," she muttered sourly.

"_Boss_. That not be very adventurous."

"Yes, well. Neither's getting stabbed in the guts in the rain." She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. _And we were stupid enough to walk right into it. Well, what else were you going to do? Maybe start learning how to leave not-so-innocent travelers to their maybe-deserved fates,_ she thought viciously.

She looked across the camp, saw the merchant himself, tall and slender, his dark purple robes turned almost black in the rain. Soaked flaxen hair was plastered to his head, and rings glinted on his hands and in both ears. He stood beside one of the wagons, two of his men nearby, and she noticed the worried, drawn cast to his face. Suddenly determined, she pushed off the log.

"Boss? What Boss thinking?"

"What's that old saying about going straight to the horse's mouth?"

Valen blinked slowly. "Horse's…mouth?"

"I'll explain later." Stepping carefully through the mud, she wove past a half-buried boulder and approached the merchant. "Time for a chat?"

The merchant spun, his robes dragging against the mud. He peered through narrowed, hazel eyes. "Ah. The waifs and strays Taylesh picked up."

Jaiyan smirked at him. "First time I've been called a waif and stray by someone whose neck I helped save."

The merchant snorted. "Is this the part where you want thanks for a timely rescue? I was hoping gold would suffice, at least once we get out of this godsforsaken forest."

"Gold will do just as well." She leaned companionably against the side of the wagon. "Been meaning to ask, though. What's the cargo?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Whatever it is you're carrying that has all these orcs worked up to such a lather."

"Ah." The merchant studied her sharply. "Did you work that out all on your own, or did Taylesh misbehave?"

"Don't blame him. I would've become terribly curious on my own, even if I hadn't spent the best part of today fending off orcs."

A thin smile curled the merchant's lips. "Then you will have to stew in your curiosity, I'm afraid."

Jaiyan folded her arms. "I'm stewing enough in the rain as it is. What's the cargo?"

The merchant laughed. "And you'll do what if you're not told? Turn around and walk off into the forest?"

"And if we did?" Valen demanded.

"Go ahead," the man said. "And see what happens when the orcs follow you. They've seen you with us, so they might think you know."

Jaiyan scowled, and reined back anger. "So did you crawl into some damp cave and nick some orc's favourite chainshirt, or something?"

"Nothing quite so trivial, I assure you." The merchant's gaze flicked past her, to where the sentries patrolled. "Now, shouldn't you be helping my men stay alive another day or so?"

Something in the merchant's cruel, cold tone made her bristle. She glanced past to him, to where wrapped chests lay in the wagon. "So, is that the loot of no name?"

He shook his head. "What's your point?"

She exchanged a quick look with Valen and darted around the front of the wagon. She heaved the sodden coverings back, revealing three wooden chests.

"I wouldn't try," the merchant said idly. "Warded and locked."

Jaiyan shrugged. "Deeks?"

The little kobold spread his hands. His eyes closed, and he sang out three piercing notes. Magic washed over the chests, and something thrummed in low response. Then the locks snapped apart, glowing sharp white.

The merchant stared, horrified. "Wait, no!"

Feeling rather uncharitable, Jaiyan drove an elbow into his ribs, pushed past him, and heaved up the first lid. She gazed down at heaped coin and jewels, and scowled. "That can't be it. Why would orcs care about this..?"

"Try the other one, Boss."

Across the camp, she heard the sentries calling out. The merchant struggled back up to his feet, but Valen grabbed him, wrenched his arm behind his shoulders, held him in place.

She dragged the second one up, and gaped. Pale sunlight gleamed against round, pebbled surfaces, and she thought she heard a soft sound, as if of something small trying to breathe. Cushioned on velvet, the merchant's stolen treasure sat there, streaked now with the rain.

"Good gods above and below," she breathed. "Deekin? Are they what I think they are?"

The little kobold nodded, his face alight with excited curiosity. "Yep! Boss, those be dragon eggs!"


	4. Chapter 4

_First off, an apology for the delay in posting. As they say, life happened, and certain visitors (relatives from across the globe) arrived somewhat earlier than planned. Still, all is now organised so I should be able to update more often now. The usual disclaimer applies - I own little apart from a handful of my own characters - the setting and everyone else are owned by Bioware.  
_

_**Chapter Four - Problems**_

Jaiyan stared down at the dragon eggs, wrapped snug in the velvet. Her heart was racing, and her thoughts suddenly all involved a variety of messy deaths by fire or claws. "What exactly are you doing with _dragon eggs?_ And where exactly did you get them?"

"From a _dragon_, Boss!"

She ignored the little kobold, glared instead at the merchant. "Where did you get these?"

The merchant wrenched against Valen's hold and muttered, "And what business is it of yours?"

"It very much becomes my business if we're about to get broiled alive by a justifiably angry lady dragon," she snapped.

The merchant opened his mouth to snarl something else. Jaiyan stepped in closer, furious enough to punch the truth from him if she had to. "Start talking. Now."

A hail of crossbow bolts raked out of the trees, and the sentries shrieked. Jaiyan whirled, pulling her sword free. _Not again_, she thought, nearly frantic. _Not again. _She heard footsteps, thumping against the damp ground, and men shouting. Another volley rattled out, sinking into the mud and thunking against the sides of the wagons.

Valen shoved the merchant aside and flanked Jaiyan. "What do you want to do?"

"Run," she yelled. "Leave the wagons and run!"

"No!" The merchant wrestled past them and dived at the eggs.

A bolt ripped alongside Jaiyan's head, and she flinched. She gazed at the trees, saw dark shapes moving. White fire spat out from Deekin's hands, and she heard orcs screaming as the trees just past the wagons exploded into pale flame. While Deekin chanted another spell into life, she whirled and glared at Taylesh. "Get your men moving and get them out of here!"

Lightning forked from Deekin's spread fingers, and the sickening reek of charred flesh followed. The sentries formed up, swords drawn, turning as three orcs broke through the treeline. Taylesh nocked an arrow, lined up too quickly, and fired. The shaft wailed past the first orc's head, snagged against the tree behind. Valen hurled himself past them, flail whirring. He crashed full-force into the orc, driving it back three paces. Devil's Bane spun, the twin heads flashing, and the orc crumpled, half its head ripped away.

"Come on! _Now!_" Jaiyan chivvied the sentries away. "Come on! We need to run!"

Valen dodged the sweep of an axe, used one elbow to knock an orc staggering. Another two thundered out of the trees, and he turned to meet them.

Taylesh motioned his men across the camp, and towards the forest. "Come on!"

Jaiyan paused, sword in hand. "Valen! We need to go, now!"

Flames roared from Deekin's hands, washed over Valen as he ducked, and seethed across the charging orcs. They howled, and Jaiyan swallowed. She tore her gaze away as the fire danced across them, buckling metal and leather and searing the flesh beneath.

Valen rolled away, came up running. He met her just past the wagons, and she managed a wry grin. "Helps to be a tiefling sometimes?"

He looked down, noticed a scorched patch on his breastplate, and glowered. "If that abrades, or gets rained on…"

"Or rusts, gods forbid," she added, straight-faced. "Come on, my tiefling. I prefer you and your armour intact."

Deekin raised his hands, called another hail of lightning. White light jagged out, sizzling across the four orcs brave enough to venture out of the trees. When they recoiled, hissing and screaming, Deekin sent another surge of fire past them.

"Deeks!" Jaiyan sprinted up to him. "Come on, we're leaving."

He glanced past her, to the wagons. "But merchant man took dragon eggs."

She followed his gaze, and saw that the chest was empty. "Of course he did. He's an idiot who probably deserves to get turned into charcoal."

"What Boss wants to do?"

"I'm not sure. Stay alive, for a start." She risked a quick look at the trees, saw more figures moving, keeping away from the flames that licked at the low-hanging branches. "Come on. Before they get bold enough to try again."

They caught up with Taylesh and the sentries an hour's brisk run away. Shaking with nervous fatigue, most of the men were leaning wearily against trees or else scanning the forest with round, darting eyes. Filthy from slogging through wet leaves and thick mud, Jaiyan raked her hair out of her face and wished she was anywhere else.

Behind her, Valen lifted Deekin off his shoulder and very gently placed him on the ground. Noticing, Jaiyan hid a quick smile. Since they had left Waterdeep, the tiefling had found himself carrying the kobold on more than one occasion. And, despite some grumbling, Jaiyan noted that every time he had hefted the little bard with more than passing care.

"Are you alright?" Taylesh asked.

"We're fine," she said tiredly. "Apart from that bit where we nearly burned the whole forest down, at least."

He opened his mouth to speak again, but she stalked past him, and cornered the merchant where he stood, leaning against a moss-covered boulder. "So," she said, conversationally. "Didn't drop those eggs, did you?"

The velvet was clutched between his hands, sweat-splotched, and his face was pale. "These are far more valuable than you know."

"And how exactly are you going to appreciate their value if you're dead?"

"If we'd moved faster," the merchant said heavily. "If we'd got through the forest quicker, I could be in Neverwinter, and safe."

"And what would happen to the eggs?"

"They'd be sold," he answered slowly. "Sold to a wizard."

Deekin clicked his teeth, unimpressed. "For magic experiments?"

The merchant shrugged. "I didn't ask what he wanted to do with them."

Jaiyan blinked. "What _does_ one do with dragon eggs?"

"Dragon eggs be used in magic rituals," Deekin said grimly. "Dragon eggs be powerful. Baby dragons be used for wizard things. For energy to power rituals."

"You mean…before they're born?"

The little kobold nodded. "Yep. Old Master joked once about finding red dragon eggs and eating some not-alive baby dragons and selling others."

She swallowed. Something twisted in her gut, very close to revulsion. "Where did you get them? And please answer truthfully, since I'm getting very tired of asking."

"A mercenary," the merchant muttered. "I paid him to take his men into the mountains, and find me some dragon eggs. They'll fetch a handsome price in Neverwinter."

"You've done this before?"

"A few times." He swept loose hair back from his forehead. "This time it was different. Turned out the stupid bastard managed to pick a dragon who'd got herself a lot of servants."

"The orcs."

"Yes. Gods know how many she has."

Jaiyan crouched down, idly tapped her sword hilt. "And the mercenary?"

"Dead." He scowled. "If only we'd moved faster…"

She snorted. "Do I even want to know what kind of dragon it was?"

The merchant's face was waxen, and the hands twisting in the velvet were trembling. "No, you don't."

Part of her wanted to shake the rest of the story from him, maybe pry the eggs from his hands and beat him black and blue just for good measure. Instead, she straightened up, trying to ignore the twinging in her back. She turned back to Deekin and Valen, and murmured, "Well. I think we've done it this time, haven't we?"

Valen smiled wryly. "Do we have a plan?"

"I'm not sure." She scrubbed a hand across her face. Beneath her leathers, she ached, and her feet were cold, and the long, mostly-closed cut on her forearm throbbed. "Deeks, what would a female dragon be doing, after her eggs had been stolen?"

"Depends," he answered thoughtfully. "Maybe she be really angry, and be flying around trying to find eggs."

"And whoever took them," Jaiyan muttered.

"Yep. Or maybe she be sitting in cave."

"What, planning what to do to whoever took them?"

"Maybe." He shrugged. "But wouldn't human female be angry if babies got stolen?"

"Well, when you put it like that." She glanced over her shoulder, saw the sentries gazing worriedly at the trees, at the way the branches fluttered and moved. "Could we give them back to her?"

"Maybe," Deekin allowed. "But Boss got to get eggs back to dragon lady, without dragon lady eating Boss."

"A definite possible flaw in the plan." She threw a quick look at the merchant again. "Where was this cave?"

"What?"

"The dragon's cave. Where?"

He shrugged. "Somewhere up past the Greypeaks."

_Too far,_ she thought. _We'd get slaughtered before we got halfway there._ _Should we run for Neverwinter instead? No, we're still more than a few days away. Besides, we don't know the terrain at all. _"Deeks?"

"Yes, Boss?"

"I…don't know what to do," she said quietly, baldly. "Any ideas?"

"Well…" He tilted his head to one side. "Whether Boss want to give eggs back to dragon mother, or take eggs to Neverwinter, eggs need to be kept warm."

"Warm?"

"Yep. Otherwise dragons _inside _eggs might die, and then dragon mother be _really_ angry."

"Alright." She marched back over to the merchant, and slowly drew her sword. "Give me the eggs."

His hands clenched on the velvet. "They're mine."

"And if they die, you won't get paid."

He glanced down the length of her sword, and past her shoulder, to where Valen stood with Devil's Bane loosely grasped in one hand. "Alright," he said, slowly. "But if anything happens, I want them right back in my hands and all there."

While Taylesh organized sentries, and Valen informed them that there would be no campfire at all once the sun went down, Jaiyan found a sheltered spot behind the rise of a tall boulder. There, beside a clump of treeroots, she sat with Deekin and the wrapped bundle of eggs. Inside the damp velvet, they felt strange, somehow solid and soft all at once. She touched one of them, and was sure she felt _something _rippling beneath the surface, hot and rhythmic.

"Are you sure these are alright?"

"Boss worried?"

"Well, I am somewhat panicked that a vengeful dragon might dive down and ask want the hells we've been doing to her young."

"Nope. Boss be fried alive before that happens."

Jaiyan glared across the unfolded velvet at him. "Thanks for that."

"Deekin just trying to help."

She snorted and dragged her gaze across to the eggs, laid innocuously on their coverings. She reached out, felt the damp velvet. "Should they be warmer?"

"Perhaps." Deekin frowned, and ran his hands along the eggs. "Deekin not know much about dragon eggs, but…"

"But?"

"But Deekin think…they like attention."

"Attention. Right. Go right ahead." She raised an eyebrow at him. "I won't stop you."

The twilight wound on, spreading deepest blue across the sky. The trees rustled, mercifully free of orcs, and the stars rose, pale and blinking against the sweep of the night. The dark was brittle, and the sharp air promised frost, curling leaves and cold soil. Taylesh's men sat their watches nervously, their breath coming in white gasps as they stared at the waving trees.

Deekin whiled away the hours with the wrapped-up eggs in his lap. He tended to lean over them more often than not, and Jaiyan noticed his nose touching them as he murmured to them. She wondered what he said, when he crouched across them, as he muttered things in the odd, stilted language she supposed was draconic. Finally, as the moon swung overhead, and she tugged her cape closer around her shoulders, she decided her curiosity was killing her.

"Deeks?"

"Yes, Boss?"

"What are you saying?"

"Oh." He shrugged, a little self-consciously. "Deekin just be telling them stories."

"Stories?" She grinned. "About what?"

"Deekin and Old Master. And Boss. And about how dragons grow up big and strong and fly." Deekin's head lifted, his dark eyes wide and serious. "Boss?"

"Mmm?"

He glanced quickly across the glade, to where the merchant huddled with two of his men. "Don't take them to Neverwinter."

She nodded slowly. _I have no idea what we'll do instead_, she thought, _but I suppose I never really would have bolted for Neverwinter. I suppose we'll have to see how this plays out, even if only to see the look on that smug bastard's face when everything goes wrong._

"Alright," she whispered back. "But I'm blaming you if we die a messy and fiery death."

After swapping with one of the mercenaries, Valen joined the two of them at the centre of the camp and cast a vaguely apprehensive eye at the eggs.

"They haven't hatched yet," Jaiyan muttered.

He snorted. "There's a while to go before dawn."

Deekin's wings stiffened. "Goat-man not know much about dragon eggs. Eggs not ready to break open yet."

"Forgive me, but I'm not entirely reassured."

Deekin gathered the wrapped bundle closer and pointedly ignored him.

Smiling to herself, Jaiyan poked Valen's arm until he shifted, and then settled herself against his chest. His breastplate was cold, and the clasps just above his waist were digging into her side, but she had no inclination to move. His hand trailed across her hair, heavy and warm and reassuring. "Valen?"

"Yes, my love?"

"If we manage to get out of this, what do you want to do afterwards?"

"Find an inn, lock the door, and indulge in plans that all have to do with you and a warm bed."

She laughed. "I heartily approve." Her gaze drifted away from him, across the damp, chill soil, to where an oak reared up, curled and dark against the sky. "Valen?"

"Mmm?"

"Do you remember…" Her voice came hesitantly, and part of her wondered why. "Do you remember, when we were in Cania, and we talked about how…"

His arm tightened around her. "Yes?"

"About how we might go anywhere?"

"Yes." His fingers slipped down her cheek, stroking. "I remember."

She plucked absently at her belt. "Well, I've been wondering, have you ever wanted to go back to Sigil?"

"I…" He shifted so that he could look at her properly. His blue eyes were level, thoughtful. "Jaiyan, even if I _could_, I'm not sure I…it's just, Sigil is…not safe."

"You once told me it was also the city of cities. Wondrous and terrible."

"That's true." He reached across, brushed a stray lock of hair away from her forehead. "What's made you think of Sigil?"

"I don't know." She stirred uncomfortably. "The rain, the mud, our impending death on behalf of a vengeful dragon. That sort of thing." She bit the inside of her cheek and added, "Oh, and that bit where you nearly got shot in the back of the head."

He snorted. "He was panicking."

_No,_ she thought desperately. _He saw the horns and the tail and figured an arrow to the skull would solve it. _"Maybe," she said, sourly.

"Beloved, I don't even know how to get back to Sigil. And even if I did…I have not been there for many years. It's likely to have changed."

"Do you miss it at all?" she asked.

His gaze sharpened on her. "Why are you pushing this?"

"I don't know." A half-truth, and she found herself glancing away from him, avoiding his level blue eyes. "Sorry. I just thought…I don't know what I thought."

"It's alright." He cupped her chin, turned her head. "And yes, in a way, I do miss it. It was home, for a time, and it is the first place I remember."

She sank against back his shoulder, and wondered again why the words had come so timidly. _Usually we just go and blurt out whatever seems to sound good at the time, don't we? So why all the stammering? Do you really think he'd get himself killed by some idiot who doesn't know what a tiefling is? Or one who _does_ know what a tiefling is?_

_Not so long ago, you didn't know what a tiefling was,_ the snide part of her thoughts reminded her. _True, but I wouldn't have shot one on sight, either. _

"Boss!"

Deekin's voice, low and urgent, and dragging her out of her reverie. She blinked, and looked across in time to see him hunching his wings around the dragon eggs. "What is it? What's happened?"

"Boss needs to come here and see," he hissed back.

She edged across the damp leaves, leaned in, and gasped. Sitting on the velvet, shadowed under the arch of the kobold's wings, two of the eggs were _pulsing_. She reached out, and felt the rhythmic thump of something very like a slow, steady heartbeat. The surface of the eggs was almost painfully hot, and she could have sworn they were glowing, however faintly. "Ah…I thought you said they weren't ready to hatch."

"Umm…Deekin _fairly sure_ they not ready to hatch."

"Great." She touched the other egg, felt the same palpitating heat. "I suppose live baby dragons don't fetch such a great price?"

"Well…Deekin supposes wizards not want experiments that bite back."

She rocked back on her heels, looked desperately at Valen. "Now what do we do?"

"Keep them hidden," he said, quietly. "Keep them wrapped up, and don't take your eyes off them, bard."

Deekin nodded furiously.

Jaiyan pushed up to her feet, cast a wary glance across the glade. Moonlight slid in pale lines through the trees, edging leaves and branches. The air was still, the trees unmoving, stark and arched against the sky. A horrible sense of apprehension coiled in her gut, and her heart was racing. Valen slid a steadying arm around her shoulders, and she leaned back against him.

Footsteps crunched over fallen twigs as Taylesh approached. His eyes were shadowed and dark, every angle on his face etched with exhaustion. "Jaiyan?"

She smiled, bright and brittle. "My watch?"

He nodded. "Thanks." He paused a good half-dozen steps away, and his gaze flicked across to Deekin. He opened his mouth as if about to say something, changed his mind, and padded back across the glade.

Jaiyan found a tree trunk to lean against, and stared out into the blank, motionless forest. The air was cool against her face, and she found herself wishing for a breeze, anything to make the branches move, to quell the nervous knot in her chest.

A large shadow dived across her, and she flinched. "Oh, Gods, Valen. You scared me."

He smiled gently, settled himself beside her. "I'm sorry."

"No, you're not." She smirked at him, and caught the twitching end of his tail. She traced her hands over the spaded end of it, and felt him shudder. She loved how easily he responded when she played with his tail, and absently wondered if the world would be a happier place if more men had them. The thought progressed into a giggle, quickly stifled.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Nothing appropriate." She grinned and gave his tail a final squeeze, heard him groan softly. "Sorry."

He shook his head. "No, it feels very good."

She let him go, and his tail slid down and wrapped around her thigh. "You know, I'm tempted to declare this the last time we ever travel with other people."

His hands descended onto her shoulders, kneading. "And I am tempted to agree."

They stood like that for a long moment, with her gazing out at the silent trees, and his arms draped around her. When the aching muscles in her calves finally shrieked at her to move, she grudgingly shifted away from him a little.

A sudden, unexpected gust stirred the branches. Jaiyan tipped her head back, saw the leaves above fluttering. The air pushed against her face, cold and biting. She opened her mouth to say something sarcastic about contrary weather, but Valen's hand came down hard on her shoulder.

"Wait," he whispered in her ear. "Do you hear that?"

"Orcs?"

"No," he said. "Not on the ground."

Her stomach flipped over. She stared up at the sky, saw nothing but the points and curves of the branches, and the glittering spread of the stars. She strained to listen, but she made out nothing beyond the rushing of the wind and the creaking of her own leathers as she moved. "I don't…."

A deep, angry roar shook the trees. Sweat sprang out on her temples, and she locked a hand around her sword hilt. _Alright. That, I heard._ There was another howl, long and pained. A huge, dark shape swooped across the glade, and Jaiyan felt her knees turn to water. The dragon swung overhead, and yet another bone-shaking bellow tore from its throat.

She felt Valen's grip on her shoulder as he steadied her. She drew in a slow, trembling breath. "Right," she said. "_Now_ what do we do?"


	5. Chapter 5

_**Chapter Five – Instincts**_

Sword drawn, buffeted full in the face by the downdraft from the dragon's wings, Jaiyan stood her ground as the huge creature hovered above the glade. The long, thick tail snapped against the trees, and the pointed, narrow head coiled around. Jaiyan gulped down a quick breath and tried not to think about how big the curving claws were, or how many teeth would be hidden in that snarling mouth.

"Wow, Boss!" Deekin hopped up and down beside her, his dark eyes pinned excitedly on the dragon. "She be beautiful!"

Burnished crimson, every line of sinew and hard muscle stiff beneath the rippling scales, the dragon stayed poised in the air. Long spikes fanned up from behind the dragon's skull. Each slow, measured beat of the great wings sent leaves tumbling and dangling vines thrashing. Somewhere between contemplating how much the creature weighed, and how quickly dragons could rustle up flames, Jaiyan found herself silently agreeing.

The dragon's mouth opened, revealing a disconcerting glow somewhere behind rows of teeth. Jewel-bright eyes seared across the clearing, finally fixing on Jaiyan. She gripped her sword hilt, aware her skin was clammy inside her gloves, and wondered how far they would make it if they ran.

"Shoot it!"

Jolted out of her thoughts, she turned, saw Taylesh motioning his men forward. He already had an arrow nocked, and his hands shook as he tried to aim. The others were edging across the soil, swords clasped in trembling fingers, their eyes pinned on the dragon.

"No, wait!" She gestured furiously at him. "Don't!"

Huddled behind Taylesh, the merchant stared at the dragon. "Kill it! Now!"

"_No!_ You'll get us all slaughtered," Jaiyan shouted.

She flung a desperate glance to Valen, and in six steps the tiefling was across the clearing. He wrenched Taylesh's bow aside, and the arrow flailed out wide and bit into the ground. He spun, locked an arm around the merchant's waist, and held him in a punishing grip.

Jaiyan licked at dry lips and made herself look back up at the dragon. Those huge, fierce eyes leveled at her, and she quailed. _Dear Gods above, she's huge. I hope she's not hungry. _

"We have your eggs," she called up, not quite sure what else to say. "They're not harmed."

The dragon snorted, and her claws dug into the ground as she landed properly. Her wings snapped in along her flanks, and her tail lashed. "You stole them."

"No," Jaiyan said quickly. Her throat felt scratchy, as if she had swallowed sand. "We want to give them back to you."

The dragon's baleful gaze shifted, moving past Deekin and the sentries, to where the merchant thrashed against Valen's bone-crushing hold. "You," the dragon snarled. Her voice trembled, thick with anger and something else, something close to sadness. "You smell of caves and fire, and the warmth of my eggs."

The blood drained from the merchant's face, and he sagged against Valen's hands. "No," he stammered. "I didn't steal them…"

"No, tiny man, but I smell them on you, and I smell the echoes of other eggs, stolen from others, and taken away to be used." Smoke curled around the dragon's open jaws. "You let another take the eggs, and let him be killed so you could have them for yourself."

"No, I…."

Flames licked around the dragon's teeth, and the gleam in her eyes turned sly. Her head turned, and she looked at Jaiyan again. "The tiefling holding him. Do you care if he lives as well?"

"What? Yes," she blurted. Sudden panic lanced through her. "I mean, take the man. But leave the tiefling. Please leave the tiefling. He had nothing to do with this."

The dragon snorted again, and her jaws dropped open. "Move, tiefling. The flesh of your kind may not burn easily, but I do not think it would be wise to test this."

Valen did not complain, did not even speak. Only shoved the merchant away, and stepped back, coolly watching as the merchant hit the ground knees-first. His hands convulsed in the curling leaves, and he was shaking as he kept his gaze trained firmly downwards.

"At least lift your head," the dragon spat. "Or would you prefer to go to your death a mewling coward?"

The merchant said nothing. His whole body shook, and his fingers scrabbled against the ground. Sweat tracked thick stripes down his temples, and Jaiyan saw him chewing at his lower lip.

Something very like a sneer crossed the dragon's face. She tilted her head to one side, and fire gushed from her throat. White-edged, bright enough that Jaiyan had to shield her eyes, and sizzling. The flames rushed over the merchant, melting cloth and hair and skin, and Jaiyan cringed and turned away. She had always hated the sounds and smells of people burning, and even now, her stomach rebelled. Gritting her teeth, she registered the horrible thump as the merchant hit the ground, blackened and smoking. She made herself look back up at the dragon, and wondered again whether there would be any mercy shown.

"My eggs," the dragon said, low and urgent. "Show them to me."

Jaiyan stepped to one side, let Deekin hold up the wrapped bundle.

"A kobold." Smoke plumed from the dragon's nostrils as she studied him. "A kobold with wings and more than a drop of ancient blood in him. Interesting."

With his skinny arms shaking, Deekin gently laid the eggs back down and peeled the velvet back. The dragon's head descended, and her eyes narrowed as she sniffed at her eggs.

_Please let them still be alive,_ Jaiyan thought madly. _Please let them be alright. _

The dragon's tongue ran across the surface of the nearest egg, and her eyes widened.

"Deekin think they be close to hatching," the little kobold piped up. "Deekin been keeping them warm."

"Have you?" The dragon's voice was rough with an odd, unreadable note.

"They be all alright?"

"Yes. I can hear their hearts." The dragon stared narrowly at the kobold. "Come here."

With his wings rustling nervously, he approached, blinked up at her.

"Touch them," she said, softly. "Touch them and hear them."

He crouched down, cautiously laid a hand on the egg closest. He leaned in a little nearer, and a huge grin split his face. "Deekin hears this one! Fast and quick. Dragon lady thinks this one be a boy?"

"Perhaps," she answered. One elegant claw flicked out, and she tugged the velvet back over the eggs. Her gaze lifted, fiery and challenging, and fastened on Jaiyan. "So. What do you expect for this?"

"I'm…I'm sorry?"

"My eggs are returned, my enemy turned into charcoal. What do you want?"

She stared up into the dragon's broad, shrewd face, and swallowed. "Ah…nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing. Ah…I have to admit, not being in flaming pieces on the ground right now is quite enough reward by itself."

Something very like a laugh bubbled from the dragon's throat. "Honesty, from a human? My, the wonders of this world will never cease."

Jaiyan could not quite tear her eyes from the dragon's. Part of her wanted to ask what the catch was going to be, since in every story she had ever read, dragons rarely seemed to behave so civilly. "What are you going to do now?"

"Burn the forest to the ground, kill everyone within nine leagues, and fly back to my cave, taking every coin you carry with me," the dragon said, entirely flat.

For a long moment, Jaiyan peered apprehensively at her. "Please tell me you're joking."

The dragon snorted, and rough smoke hazed the air. "Of course I'm joking. I imagine you carry a paltry handful of gold between you." Her wings snapped out, and she swung her gaze onto Taylesh. "You stink of fear."

He shook his head. "No…I'm just…"

"Why so terribly afraid?" Three wide steps carried the dragon forward, her claws curling through the leaves, sinking into the loam beneath. "It comes in waves from you. Why, small creature? What did you have to do with the stealing of my eggs?"

"Nothing," he managed, tremulous.

"Nothing?" Her thick, muscled neck twisted, and she glanced back at Deekin. "Kobold, you kept them alive and warm. The woman and the tiefling have no responsibility, yes?"

Deekin nodded furiously. "Dragon lady be right."

"And this one?" Her head was inches from Taylesh's, and he seemed horribly captivated by the way her eyes glowed. "Did he know?"

Taylesh shook his head. The skin around his mouth was grey, and he blinked rapidly. "No, I didn't know. I swear, I did not know…"

Deekin looked down to the wrapped eggs, and his shoulders moved in a quick shrug.

Watching, Jaiyan saw the light in the dragon's eyes narrow and darken. She swallowed, and made herself turn away as the huge head snaked forward, pinning Taylesh against the ground. She heard him scream, once, and tried to ignore the sickening sounds that followed. When the dragon finally lifted her head, blood ran in scarlet threads from the spines on her jaw. Her lambent eyes swiveled, fixing on the last of the sentries. "And them? What did they know?"

"I don't know," Jaiyan managed. "I don't think they knew."

"Don't _think?_"

The air rushed, and Jaiyan found herself an inch from the curved plates of the dragon's face. That level gaze burned into her own, and suddenly, stupidly, all she could think of was how the creature's eyes reminded her of nothing more than a pair of huge rubies she had never been able to carve out of a statue in Undrentide. "No," she said again. "I don't think so."

"Is this some simple human ploy to have their lives spared?" A cold note of humour wound through the dragon's voice. The great head tipped to one side, and her eyes glittered. "Very well, girl. They may live, for now. They look as if the night and the cold will carry them off soon enough, in any case."

Jaiyan stumbled away, and flinched when she bumped into Valen's breastplate. He slipped an arm around her waist, held on while she forced herself to stand upright properly. "Oh, gods. I didn't hear you."

He murmured something she did not quite hear; the dragon's head moved again, and her heart pounded absurdly loud in her own ears.

"Boss!" Deekin flailed an arm at her. "Boss! The eggs!"

She stared down, and something twisted inside her when she saw pale lines run along one of the eggs. Like blown glass breaking, the shell fractured. Slowly, and with delicate care, the dragon flicked out one claw and peeled away the uneven fragments. Jaiyan crouched down, and most of her fear melted, replaced by curiosity, and a strange, welcome sense of wonder.

Tiny and damp and wriggling, all thin tail and snapping jaws and skinny legs, a small, scaled dragon writhed amid the shattered bits of the egg. Very gently, the dragon dipped her head lower, and ran her tongue along the hatchling's back, swiping away shreds of shell.

"Boss!" Deekin rammed his elbow unceremoniously into the side of her leg. "Boss, look how _little _it is!"

The dragon nudged the newborn upright, bracing its slender, curving back against the side of her jaw. The leathery, small wings rustled open. Bird-bright eyes rolled and settled on Deekin. The hatchling hopped forward, still staring at the kobold, captivated.

Jaiyan grinned. "Looks like you've made a friend, Deeks."

Deekin squatted down, glanced quickly to the dragon. When he received a slow nod, he held out a hand, and did not move. The hatchling nuzzled against his palm, and he smiled. Very carefully, he traced the tip of one finger down the little creature's back, between the arches of its wings, and to the base of the curling tail. "He be very pretty."

The dragon snorted. "Your kobold has an unusual way with words."

"That he does," Jaiyan said, still smirking. "Come on, Deeks. Let's not get you accidentally adopted."

Thoughtfully, the kobold smoothed out a half-inch-long crease in the hatchling's left wing. Then he rocked back on his heels and sighed. "He not going to be small very long."

"No," the dragon said. "I should hope not." Her eyes narrowed, and she gave the remaining sentries a searching glance. "I trust you will no longer take guard commissions unless the cargo is known, yes?"

One of the men nodded, ashen. "Yes."

"Where are you bound?"

"Neverwinter," the same man answered.

The dragon nodded approvingly before swinging back around to address Jaiyan again. "Human," she said, quietly. "I…must thank you. I know what some wizards do to the eggs of my kind, and you have spared them that fate."

She kicked awkwardly at a tree root. "I do have a….well, a favour to ask."

"Ask, then."

"Ah…those orcs..?"

"Yes." The dragon scowled in distaste. "I usually have little patience or mercy for such creatures, but I bargained with them. Their lives to be spared, if they helped track down my eggs. I will see that they do not trouble you further."

"Thank you."

"I shall take my leave of you," the dragon said. "You, kobold. What is your name?"

"Deekin," he answered. "Lady dragon going to take children home now?"

"Yes." She regarded him for a long, curious moment. "You have my thanks, kobold, for you kindness."

Deekin shuffled self-consciously. "Lady dragon very welcome."

Something very close to a smile ghosted across the dragon's mouth. Scooping up the eggs between her claws, she let her wings arch out. One, two, and then a third massive push of her wings, and she was off the ground, gliding up and out between the trees. Her scales rippled beneath the moonlight, and her tail seemed to float behind her, moving gently. Now that death seemed less imminent, Jaiyan noticed how she seemed to undulate through the air, gracefully and deceptively quiet. _It's like she's swimming. And swimming away, thank the gods. _

For a long, frozen moment, she watched the dragon as she flew, until she was too high, or too far away, and she could see nothing past the curve of the branches. "Well," she said, almost absently. "_That_ was interesting."

"Interesting? Boss uses word like _interesting?_ That was…that was incredible!" Deekin was practically bouncing, and his eyes glittered as he unslung his pack and dug around for parchment and ink. "Deekin never talked to red dragon before!"

"Neither have I," she muttered. "Hey, kobold. Forget the notes and find me the whiskey."

With his quill already gripped between his teeth, Deekin sighed and reached back into the pack. He unearthed a half-empty bottle, passed it across.

Jaiyan fumbled the stopper out with trembling hands, and realized her heart was thumping. Valen steadied her fingers around it, and she glanced up into his face. He seemed ridiculously unruffled, and she wondered again what strange monsters he might have seen in the Abyss. "Are you nowhere near as shaken as I am, or do you just hide it better?"

He smiled. "I'm quivering on the inside, I promise."

"Liar." She tipped the bottle back, and swallowed a good two inches of the whiskey. Sharp and strong, it hit the back of her throat and made her eyes sting. "Valen?"

He pried the bottle from her hands and ignored her protests. "Yes?"

"If we _had_ ended up fighting her, do you think we would've won?"

"Of course," he answered mildly.

"You're certain?"

"Have I ever lost a fight?"

"Arrogant tiefling." She rolled her shoulders, tried to will the last of her tension to seep away. "I just…I'm just glad we didn't have to."

"Deekin glad too," the kobold announced. "Deekin never seen baby red dragon like that."

Jaiyan giggled. "Uncle Deekin."

He folded his arms and threw her a disgruntled glare. "Uncle Deekin? What Boss means by this?"

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Dawn rose over trees that had remained mercifully quiet. After agreeing to band with the last of the merchant's men, at least until they reached the gates of Neverwinter, they had crossed a brisk, exhausting league. With the glade and the orcs and the memory of the red dragon behind them, Jaiyan had called a halt near a tall line of oaks, where a wide stream cut through the loam and curled through a tangled nest of roots. While the others slept, and Valen stood on watch, she sat with Deekin over the smoking remains of the fire. An odd breakfast of rabbit stew and rough bread had proved strangely welcome, and she found herself staring drowsily at the smoke. "Deeks?"

He sat with his legs crossed and his quill in hand. Spreading along the parchment before him was an elegant, detailed sketch of a dragon in flight, wings stretched wide and head thrown back. "Yes, Boss?"

"Thanks," she said, simply. "For what you did. With the dragon."

His quill kept snapping, adding in scales on the jaw. "Deekin likes dragons."

"You know what I mean."

He nodded, still did not look up. "Well, Deekin not like idea of Boss fried by dragon."

She laughed. "I'm touched."

They sat in comfortable silence for a long moment, while he drew, and she watched the sunlight sliding down through the leaves. She remembered how they had parted in Waterdeep, after surviving Undrentide and wasting a good while at The Yawning Portal. She had wanted to travel, though she had never been quite sure why; and he had preferred to stay and sing. Her gaze drifted across to his hands, to the quick, flickering movements of his quill.

"Deekin?"

"Yes, Boss?"

She shook her head, suddenly at a loss for words. _How do you say you'll never abandon someone again? Even if you didn't abandon him, not really? _"Nothing."

The sun was high overhead by the time Valen joined them. He propped his flail against a fallen log, and she noticed shadows beneath his eyes, and a certain terseness in his frame when he sat. "Get some sleep," she suggested. "We'll be fine."

"No." He shook his head. "We're still some days from the city. We should move on as soon as possible."

She smoothed loose red hair back from his profile. "You've been awake for two days. Go and have a lazy nap, stubborn tiefling. It is allowed."

A small smile twitched at one corner of his mouth. "Not yet. Once we're further away, and closer to Neverwinter, I'll sleep."

"Alright. But if you keel over, I'm not carrying your flail." She leaned in, kissed his temple. "Shall I go and round up the troops, then?"

"Yes." He cast a grim look at the trees, and the blue, clear sky above.

She pushed up to her feet, and groaned when all the muscles in her lower back shifted horribly. "Oh, I'm going to be sore in the morning."

"It is the morning," Valen pointed out. She rolled her eyes, and was about to stride off and shout at the sentries, but he caught her wrist. "Jaiyan?"

She looked down at him, and saw him frown. "Valen, love? What is it?"

"I don't know," he answered. He looked again at the swaying branches, and the open sky beyond. "I just…don't like it."

"You're just still bristling from the dragon. You were expecting a fight and we didn't get one."

"No, not that. This is…" He shook his head. "This is different."

"Something to do with the forest?"

"Yes. No. I don't know." He scowled. "That's terribly useful, isn't it?"

"Doesn't matter." She clasped his face in her hands, kissed him slowly. "I trust your infernal tiefling nerves far more than my own rather tired human ones. And besides, you look like a cat that's about to be dropped in a pond."

"I…what?"

She grinned at his bewildered expression. "Valen, dearest, your tail is tapping a jig on that log, and I can count your pulse in your throat by the way your teeth are gritted."

He laughed then, helplessly. "You're wonderful."

"I know." She kissed him again, and shivered when his hands slid down her sides and grasped her hips. "Now get off me, or we'll be here all day."

He grinned. "In front of prying eyes? Shameless harpy."

She batted his hands away and dropped another kiss on top of his head. She heard him chuckle as she turned away, and concluded that he should be made to laugh out loud more. Still, being stuck amid unfriendly trees with a way yet to go was no place for such thoughts. So, under mid-morning sun, and breathing in the lingering cold of the night, she called the sentries back in, and ordered the march on to Neverwinter, to stone walls and safety.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Chapter Six – Dreams and Warnings**_

In Waterdeep, beneath the glow of the full moon, a drow priestess dreamed. She lay nestled against her lover's chest, and some sleeping part of her could feel the slow thump of his heartbeat. Behind her eyelids, she saw stone, and dripping water, and the tall black spires of a temple.

_A temple that had once been held in fealty for the Spider Queen. _

_She saw walls, with huge sections propped up with rough wooden scaffolding, and the tracks of workers and stonecutters in the dust alongside. Drow guards stood at the gates, wary and poised and staring out into the darkness. _

_The vision changed, fading and resolving finally into polished basalt floors and high pillars._ _She recognized this place. She had sat on the tall chair on the dais, and held council with Valen Shadowbreath and Imloth, while the Valsharess gathered troops against them in the caverns beyond. _

_The last she had seen of this chamber, it had been in ruins, all its columns and blocks scattered across the ground and smouldering. Now, though the ceiling still gaped, and the air was full of stone-dust, it stood proud and mostly finished and lit with pale torches. Near the dais poised a drow woman, slender and beautiful, with her white hair braided back from her face. Haughtily, she shouted commands to the male soldiers as they scurried past her, but the light in her crimson eyes was nothing short of happiness. _

_She knew the drow woman, knew that her name was Nathyrra of House Kant'tar, and that she was now Matron Mother of the city she stood in. She remembered the day the guards had called her down to the gates of Lith My'athar, with the message of a newly-arrived drow female, still clad in the scarlet and black of the Valsharess' assassins. She had found no lethal killer, that day; only a young woman, broken and bleeding onto the black stone, with her leathers holding her wounded body together. After calming the guards, she very gently guided the female inside, and up the stairs into the temple. _

_"I'm sorry," the female said, her voice thick and low with pain. "I didn't…I didn't meant to come here. I don't…"_

_"All will be well." She steered the other female into a chair and stepped back a pace, very aware of how her frame was coiled, tense enough to bolt. "You are injured, and you must be healed."_

_"No, no…I'll be…I'm alright." _

_"No," she said, softly. "Let me help you. I know why you are here." _

_The female drow's red eyes swiveled, hollow and exhausted. "I heard the rumours," she said. "The Valsharess would tell us it was all lies, but they spoke of a place given over to Eilistraee, and taken from Lolth. Is it true?" _

_"Yes," she said. "It is true." _

_She remembered how the young female had finally let her leathers be peeled back, revealing dreadful gashes along both sides, and a deep, welling hole an inch or so in from her right hip. During the healing, she found other scars, older and faded, striping her lean, muscled shape. _

_The dream changed around her, the curving walls of the temple buckling in, and the blood on Nathyrra's leathers vanishing, along with the scent of incense and candle flames. _

_Darkness remained, unbroken and pressing in, tight and cold. She heard water running, and her mouth tasted of copper and rust. The air was heavy with memories that brushed just on the edge of her awareness. There was something old here, something old and vengeful, and part of her seethed, realized that she should _know_. But the threads of her thoughts slipped away, leaving her mind filled with the insistent drip of water against stone. _

A warm weight pressed against her shoulder, and she surfaced slowly from the dream. "Imloth?"

Beside her, he stirred, lifted his head. His eyes half-opened, and he murmured, "Not awake." He blinked and looked at her properly. "Mmm. You were dreaming?"

"Yes." She rolled over. "I saw Nathyrra."

"Where is she?"

"Back in Lith My'athar, ordering around males while looking rather pleased with herself."

"I think she'd enjoy that." Imloth smiled drowsily.

"They're rebuilding the temple." She stared absently past his shoulder, to where late moonlight lanced in through the curtains. "I saw darkness, as well."

"Something to do with the Underdark?"

"No. At least, I don't think so." She reached out, curled her fingers around a loose white coil of his hair, stroked. "It was…I don't know."

Imloth's hand cupped under her chin, turned her head. "You're troubled."

"Yes," she admitted. "There was nothing but dead air and the taste of rust and old blood."

"Rust?"

"Yes. The way the buckles on your armour smelled after they were caught in the rain. Except…older." She burrowed against the welcome warmth of his shoulder and tried to steady her breathing. "I am sorry. This…I am not usually so rattled by dreams."

"Not for some time, now." Not impatient, he rubbed one hand down the stiff line of her back. "Did you see anything else?"

"No." Frustration followed, that perhaps she should have tried to keep herself settled within the dream. That perhaps she _could have_, and might have seen whatever it was the images promised. _Whatever it was hidden in that darkness, tasting of rust and old memories. _

"Don't worry." He brushed her hair aside, kissed her forehead. "You'll dream it again," he said, firmly.

But up here on the surface, her thoughts were more clouded, and whatever help Eilistraee sent always seemed muddled, and needing unravelling. It was strange, she reflected, that her gift had come sharp and bright with clarity while under rocks and earth and leagues of darkness; but here, beneath the flood of the moon herself, her dreams were confusing and over too quickly.

_But even so, _she thought, _down in the Underdark, you had the guidance of others, scholars who knew of prophecy and prescience, and its trickeries. Here, you have yourself, a handful of thoughts, and Imloth's boundless optimism. _

She bit her lip and pushed away sudden guilt. "Perhaps," she answered. "There was…I don't know. Something _wrong_."

Imloth folded his arms around her, and combed his hands through her hair until she shivered, and felt herself relaxing. They lay like that, peacefully, and pressed close enough that she could see the faint scar that crossed his left temple. Despite the smooth, inviting warmth of Imloth's bare skin, she did not sleep, and instead let her thoughts dwell on the half-finished dream, and the pervasive taste of rust that lingered inside her mouth.

Morning brought a bright fall of crisp sunlight through the curtains, and bleary squinting from Imloth when he sat up and forgot to shield his eyes. They were both getting better at remembering how harsh the transition from night to day sometimes seemed, but the sight of him blinking owlishly made her smile.

"You're laughing at me again," he muttered. "Why is it I seem to forget that if I'm not up before dawn, I'm going to blind myself?"

"Because in the dark, or the moonlight, it seems as if the sun cannot be so harsh."

He kicked the blankets aside, shivered. "Yes." He rubbed his hands across his eyes again. "Are you seeing Mhaere's friend today?"

"Yes. This morning."

It had started some days ago, nearly seven – all had been quiet in the taproom, and Imloth had been outside, putting himself through a gruelingly long sword drill. Left to her own devices, and the company of Durnan's wife, Mhaere, she had had found herself listening to the other woman's stories of adventuring when much younger.

"_I was even a paladin," Mhaere said, grinning. "Strapped up in too much armour and with a righteous crusade. Of course, righteous crusades mean little when you end up marrying the local boy who tagged along to help you kill orcs." _

_The Seer helped Mhaere lay the fire in the taproom, and spear half a pig on the kitchen spit for the evening, and even found herself the slightly-willing recipient of a lecture concerning how to draw a decent tankard of ale. The day wore on, and the taproom door slammed open, letting in a blast of cold wind and a young woman._

_The woman was Elrenna, the Seer learned, and she was six months gone with child. Widowed when Mephistopheles turned one half of the city into a wall of rippling flame and the other into rubble, she had long been a friend of Mhaere's. But this morning she brought panic, and the terrified news that she had been on her way to see a midwife at the temple, and had not made it through the merchant district before dark, hot blood had slicked the inside of her thighs._

"_Sit down," Mhaere ordered gently. Brooking no argument, she clasped Elrenna's trembling wrists and walked her into the parlour, the Seer following. "Sit down, and let's have a look at you."_

_But Durnan's wife had been adventurer, paladin and mother, never a healer, so, despite the woman's frantic anxiety, the Seer stepped forward. "We will need hot water, clean cloths and somewhere for your friend to sit back comfortably." _

_Elrenna's tired-looking, blue eyes rolled and fixed on her. "She's a drow……"_

"_She's a friend," Mhaere said firmly. She looked away from Elrenna, and at the Seer again, nearly desperate. "Can you help?" _

"_Yes," she answered, simply. At her mother's commands, she had been present at the birth of several of her sisters' children, and those of other high-ranking priestesses. She had learned that childbirth seemed less a miracle of any goddess and more a violent struggle for survival. She remembered how her sister, the eldest sibling, upon enduring twenty hours of pain and blood, had finally birthed her second son. And how their mother had simply turned, and walked out of the room, and said nothing. _

"_I can help," the Seer said. "But your friend must try to relax. Slow her breathing." _

"_Elrenna," the woman gasped. "My name is Elrenna."_

"_Elrenna," the Seer repeated, softly. She waited while Mhaere ran to fetch cloths and water, and sat close, and clasped the woman's sweating, shaking hand. "I am a healer, and I will try to help you." _

"_Will the child die?"_

"_I don't know," the Seer said, quietly honest. "I will try to see that your child lives."_

_Fear still shone in the woman's eyes, but she did not recoil when the Seer slowly pushed her skirts up around her waist, and nor did she protest when warm water was used to mop away the blood that streaked her thighs in thin lines. The day wore on, tortuously, but Elrenna's breathing finally steadied, and the blood slowed. And when she spread her hands over the woman's taut belly, the Seer felt the child inside kicking. _

"Does she trust you, do you think?" Imloth asked.

"I'm not sure. She trusts Mhaere."

"Perhaps that is enough."

He meandered across the floorboards, half-naked, and she found her gaze lingering on the play of sunlight across his shoulders when he leaned forward and scooped up her robes.

The unspoken still haunted him, she knew; had Elrenna's child sickened and died, or bled out of her that morning, well, surely _she_, a drow priestess, would have been to blame? Surely some dark magic of Lolth could be held accountable for such a tragedy?

He had asked, after Elrenna had been sent slowly home, had asked if she had known the child would live through such an ordeal, would twist and turn beneath her hands.

She watched him pull a loose grey shirt over his head, and flick his long hair loose of the collar. He yanked the ties tight at his neck, and she followed the agile movement of his fingers. She had paused after his question, she recalled, and finally said, _"No. I did not know." _

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Late afternoon sun sloped across the high spires and towers of Neverwinter. Set sprawling and elegant across the broad curl of the river, the city gleamed gold and slate-dark beneath the arch of the cloudless sky. Tall-masted ships jostled for space alongside low-slung river craft around the wide, smooth span of the harbour. Jaiyan sat beside Valen, watching as a narrow, deepwater vessel glided between two sluggish fishing boats and slowly edged its way past the wharves.

Long days travelling at a brisk pace had taken them out of High Forest, and onto the road that led up north, crossing through Yartar before swinging slightly west and cutting through Neverwinter Wood. Mercifully free of anything angry or heavily armoured, the forest had instead been peaceful and full of pale sunlight. Nights had been spent beside small fires, apprehensively watching the whispering branches, and thankfully having any lingering fears proved wrong. Whatever tension had turned Valen impatient and terse had subsided somewhat once the trees fell behind, but she often caught him looking around, his eyes hard and narrowed, or his shoulders steel-still as he stood watch.

They had left the survivors of Taylesh's contingent at the gates of Neverwinter, amid gratitude and shaken hands, and a heavy bag of gold that Jaiyan accepted with little guilt.

Now, as their first lazy day in too many wound on to a close, she sat right beside Valen while the sun began its slow crawl behind the high towers on the other side of the wharf. The air was sharp with the scent of salt, and she found her thoughts drifting while she half-listened to the raucous cries of gulls. Flocking thick around piles of old nets, or else fluttering near furled sails, they coasted on the seaward winds and shrieked.

"It smells so strange," Valen remarked.

"Bad?"

"No. Not really." He shrugged. "I'm just used to water smelling of nothing, or smelling stagnant. This is…strong."

She tilted her face into the breeze and smiled. She loved the feel of the air playing through her hair, or ruffling her cape. "When Deeks and me were in Waterdeep, ages ago, I used to come down to the docks and just sit, and look at the water, and smell the salt."

"Did you ever sail?"

"No," she admitted. "Hells, I think the biggest boat I've ever been on was that one Cavallas lurked on."

"Would you like to?" he asked.

"I don't know." She looked across the harbour, to where a group of exhausted deckhands shimmied up rigging and yanked billowing sails tight against high spars. "I like eating fish, and I like looking at water and ships, and I like the way it all smells. I'm not sure I'd want to be on a ship. Not for any length of time, anyway. I think I'd think too much about what might be in the water underneath us."

Valen laughed. "Can you swim?"

"Ever since my father thought throwing me in the big pond behind the blacksmith's was a great way of getting me to learn."

His gaze lifted from the rippling water, and the light in his eyes darkened. "Really?"

"Well, not quite that dramatic. But the water was very deep, and I was very small, and it was rather cold, and I didn't want to do it, and he was quite, ah, physically persuasive." She leaned her head on his shoulder. "It was full of weeds and rather hideous, actually. The river up the valley was a much better place to get wet in."

"I can't swim," he said, quietly, and a little unevenly.

"Really?" She twisted, looked up into his face. "I mean, really not? You've never..?"

"No. I grew up in the alleyways of Sigil. There were a few troughs big enough to drown in, but I never learned to swim. And Grimash't never thought it a valuable lesson for his battle slaves."

"But what about…" She remembered the Underdark, and the great black river, slipping beneath the hull of Cavallas' boat, dark and oily. "When we sailed to those islands. You weren't worried about the water?"

"Only in that I was hoping the ship wouldn't hit a rock and sink," he said drily. His tail wrapped around her waist, squeezed slightly. "I had enough to think about, so I think I ignored however deep the water might have been."

"I'll have to teach you," she announced.

"Me?"

"Yes, you. Never know when it could come in handy." She poked his side thoughtfully. "Of course, you'll have to take your armour off. Of course, that might prove distracting." _Because you always react so calmly and with such decorum whenever you see him soaking wet after having a bath. Now imagine the shirt still on and absolutely sodden, and see where that gets you. _

"Jaiyan?"

She bit her lip and cursed the sudden heat that flooded her cheeks. "Yes, dearest?"

He laughed again, soft and low. "You've gone bright red."

"Your fault."

He cupped her face in both hands, and claimed her lips with a sudden, insistent kiss. She wriggled closer to him, and wished that they had bothered finding an inn before meandering down to the docks to watch ships. The inside of his mouth was hot, and his fingers found the back of her head, cradling and gentle.

"Boss?"

Deekin's plaintive question made her groan and pull reluctantly away. She could still taste Valen, and she shivered when his hands slid down to circle her hips. "Sorry, Deeks."

"Deekin not bothered," the little kobold proclaimed from his perch a little further down. "But Deekin must remind Boss of Boss saying that Boss not want to look completely ridiculous in public."

"Oh. Yes. Right." She shifted away from Valen and tried to will her heartbeat to slow. "So, how are you enjoying Neverwinter so far, Master Kobold?"

"Deekin likes this place. Maybe Deekin settle down here after Boss get killed by some angry monster."

"Deekin!" She shot him a scandalized glare. "I thought you had _some_ faith."

"Well, not if Boss not has Deekin around."

She snorted, and tried to decide whether she wanted to hug him or punch him. "Oh, very sweet."

He blinked innocuous black eyes at her. "Boss want to find tavern now?"

A short walk back from the wharfsides, where buildings rose and arched over twisting alleys, they discovered a small, crowded inn. The peeling sign outside declared the place to be called The Golden Apple, and a quick peer in through the foggy panes showed a teeming taproom and trestles packed with dockworkers and men still in sailors' clothes.

By the time Valen elbowed his way through the pack of patrons, the other two following, the light streaming in through the windows was orange. More than a few of the men at the tables muttered things about tieflings, or cursed creatures, and how they should not frequent places where decent men went to drink. Jaiyan gritted her teeth and was about ready to start an argument when Valen clasped her wrist, leaned down, and whispered, "Ignore them. I don't think we should start a fight on our first night here."

She scowled up at him. "Alright," she conceded. "But only because I'm tired."

"My lady is most gracious." He smiled genially, and escorted her past a throng of tall men in mail and surcoats. "However, I must remind my lady that I can take care of myself. My lady need not incite barroom brawls just to prove she loves me."

She laughed then, despite herself, and the dark looks from the sailors behind them. "Will a more usual gesture of romance suffice instead?"

"Of course it will. I can even give you a few suggestions if your imagine runs dry." He found a spare stool, and hoisted Deekin up on to it. "And don't you dare say a word."

She looked at the kobold, and at him, and grinned. "Wouldn't dream of it." She raised a hand, motioned the innkeeper across. "Three ales, and whatever it costs to have two rooms."

Tall and bluff, with a sailor's wind-burned, lined face, the innkeeper threw them a piercing look before finding three clean tankards. "If you drag that kobold around to stop people staring at the tiefling, then your plan has miserably failed, my friend."

"He's a tiefling?" Jaiyan batted innocent eyelashes at the man. "And here I always thought the horns meant his father was a mountain goat."

"Alright, girl." The innkeeper glowered beneath heavy eyebrows. "Just so's you know, you won't have an easy time of it. Not here, and not with him with his cursed blood."

"Hear that, dearest?" She accepted the first tankard, and flung Valen an arch look. "You've got cursed blood."

The innkeeper scraped up the coins she dropped on the bar, and his frown deepened. "I mean it, girl. You want this to be easier, you wrap him up like he's a leper, and hope that no one looks too closely."

Jaiyan leaned on her elbows, and almost snapped out a snide reply. "Thanks for the advice. Do you have two rooms?"

He nodded heavily. "First floor up. Might as well warn you, don't expect to get much sleep before midnight. Crowd tends to get a mite rowdy down here."

She eyed Valen sidelong, and met his slightly sly smile. "Not a problem," she said lightly. "I wasn't really planning on sleeping early anyway."


	7. Chapter 7

_A big thank-you to everyone who's keeping up with this, and the usual disclaimer goes in Bioware's direction, of course - most of the characters and locations belong to them, save for a few who are my own. _

_**Chapter Seven – Plans**_

Valen woke sharply, and with his pulse thumping. He groaned, rolled over, and tried to bury himself in the blankets. He could not remember what he dreamed, only that it had left his skin prickling and his nerves on full alert. He sighed and flopped over onto the pillow, and cracked open one eye. He saw nothing but rumpled fabric, and Jaiyan's tunic. He sat up, and sighed when he saw her, perched on the windowsill, arms around her shins, and glaring out at early morning mist.

He scrubbed a hand through his loose hair and wondered if it was worth trying for a truce now, or waiting until after breakfast. Last night had culminated in their fourth quarrel in nearly as many days, and he was beginning to wonder if coming to Neverwinter had been the best idea.

Almost a month in the city had siphoned away most of their gold, and despite Deekin singing nightly, and merchants in the richer areas willing to pay for guards, they had found little luck. Even the rougher mercenary captains in the docks tended to take a single look at him and back away. Jaiyan had found the occasional commission on her own, but he had discovered that he did not have the temperament for waiting in the inn for her to return, and a couple of rows had left them both deciding that it might be better if they worked together. And while he would not have entirely shied away from finding employment among the shadows of the city's darker alleyways, neither he nor the kobold nor Jaiyan knew Neverwinter or its people well enough.

He had stalked down into the taproom the night before, tired and irritable, and found her at a corner table, and well into her fifth tankard. After growling at her, that she should be saving the few coins they had left, instead of drinking them, she had lashed out at him, and abruptly reminded him that she had a firecracker temper when she chose.

_Of course,_ he thought, _you weren't exactly gracious about it either. _

He sighed again and untangled his ankles from the blankets. Gingerly, he approached the window, and risked a smile. "Feel any better?"

Her head turned, and her blue eyes fixed on him thoughtfully. "You mean before or after I told you that you don't get to tell me what to do and how to spend money and that you're certainly not helping right now and why don't you leave me the hells alone?"

"After," he said, mildly. "May I say that I'm impressed you remembered all that?"

She grimaced. "Gods, Valen. I was a real shrieking harpy to you, wasn't I?"

He nodded, slowly. "I imagine even the rats down in the docks were scared."

She peered suspiciously at him. "You're laughing at me."

"Not at all." He leaned against the wall beside her. "You…didn't mean what you said, did you?"

"About leaving me alone?" She raked loose hair back from her face and shook her head. "No, I…well, I wanted you away from me. Mainly because I was angry enough to say something worse, but…no. I didn't mean it. Not in the way you're thinking."

He exhaled, and felt some of the tension in his shoulders slacken. He had not truly been afraid, not really, but there had been that tickling worry in his head. "I'm sorry. I'm not…I've never…"

"What, had an argument with someone?"

"Had an argument with someone I love."

"Oh." She reached for him then, and pulled him down onto the sill beside her. "I'm sorry, I've…never done this before, either."

"What do you mean?"

"This," she said again. "Us. Staying together this long." A faint grin curved her lips. "I'm surprised I haven't snapped at you before."

"You have snapped at me before," he said, drily. "And I have certainly snapped at you. But…"

"I know." She nestled against the crook of his shoulder, and he shifted to let her press closer. "I'm sorry."

His mother had once told him of marriage, he remembered, and of how people somehow managed to live with each other, hopefully faithful, until their lives ran out. He had asked if that was true of tieflings, with their longer years, but his mother had only shrugged and smiled, and told him she knew he was stubborn enough to try it if he wanted to. There had been no one in his mother's life at the time, and he often wondered if there had been, before.

In Lith My'athar, he had once asked Imloth to explain the curious nature of drow intimacy, and had been left feeling slightly baffled. Though he understood taking pleasure for pleasure's sake, or negotiation if survival demanded it, he could not quite wrap his mind around the aggressive way drow went about finding conquests, even among the rebels.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Drow," he said, before he could think better of it.

Jaiyan raised her eyebrows at him. "Drow," she repeated.

"Yes. I was thinking about how, compared to us, they tend to…"

"Bed anything that walks?"

He laughed. "Yes."

"I don't see the Seer doing that," she said thoughtfully. "And not for lack of other drow being around."

He murmured his agreement, and tightened his arm around her. She was small and slender beside him, and out of habit, he leaned over and rested the side of his head against hers. "We're still going to have to do something."

She groaned. "Because we're nearly out of money."

"Yes." He squeezed her waist, felt her sigh in response. "You know the land better. What's nearby?"

"Not much. Neverwinter Wood. Port Llast is a ways up the coast, but there's little there. So unless they have the misfortune of being attacked by something this very day, there's little chance for any work."

"Further up?"

"Luskan," she answered. "But Deekin says it was made into a real mess during all that business with the plague."

"What about Waterdeep?"

"That's a way back down the coast." She shrugged. "We'd make it, but we'd be living on whatever we caught most of the way, and it wouldn't be much fun."

"Maybe we could sell Deekin," he muttered. "Or eat him."

She giggled. "You'd miss him. What about Sigil?"

He blinked, not quite sure he had heard her correctly. "Sigil?"

"Why not?"

He could think of a dozen reasons, mostly involving demons and the sheer strangeness of the city of his birth, but he only shrugged. Somewhere behind the twist of wariness that had lodged in his chest, he felt…_what exactly is that? Excitement? Anticipation? How could you be so foolish? She's human, and very young, and she has no idea what it's like to cross the planes. No, but you do, and you can protect her. You've always protected her. Underdark, Cania and arch-devil, you protected her. Why not in Sigil? _

_After all, Grimash't is dead, and his fortress was destroyed. Who would care about yet another tiefling walking the streets of Sigil, even with odd companions? _

"Valen?" She twisted around, stared up into his face. "What is it?"

"I'm thinking," he said slowly. "I…just tell me why you want to go there."

"Because I want to see it," she answered, quietly. "Part of me wants to go somewhere where I know you'll fit in, and where else would be more perfect? But I have to admit, that part of me that makes all the mad decisions…that part of me just wants to go and see Sigil and eventually come back here and tell people I saw Sigil."

"Thank you," he murmured. "Because…well, Sigil is strange, and both of us may seem like outcasts, or we may not."

She grinned. "Be a sight to see though, wouldn't it?"

He found himself smiling back, and the weight from their fight last night finally lifted. _You've survived far trickier things_, he thought. _Perhaps you can show her where you came from, and you can all make it back to Waterdeep to brag to Durnan about it. Either that or hunt rabbits up and down the Sword Coast and wait for some other commission, which probably won't come until you're starving. _

_And afterwards…well, then we'll have to see, won't we?_

"So," he said. "You do realize I have no idea how to get back to Sigil, don't you?"

Her grin widened. "I know, and I am certainly not letting you offer any more favours to mariliths who guard handy portals."

He winced, and felt heat creep up his neck. "You remembered."

"I'll never forget," she told him mischievously. "You should know that by now."

"Well, not that my first idea was to go looking for a marilith, particularly not in Neverwinter, but…how else do you find a portal?"

"First you find Deekin," Jaiyan answered. "Who is probably downstairs already, and then you find the local mages' guild."

"Mages' guild?"

"They're at a place called the Cloaktower, Deeks said. So we find ourselves a wizard who is skilled enough and amenable enough to bribes. And if that doesn't work, there's always the old-fashioned alternative of threatening."

He snorted. "I hate to be the voice of reason, but we have little enough money as it is. We certainly can't afford to pay a wizard."

"Well, I never travel anywhere without a _tiny_ bit of loot rolling around in my packs." She threw him a disarming smile. "I don't like having to cough up jewels for innkeepers and the like, but for a wizard and a portal to Sigil, I might be willing to see what I can dig up."

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Set far back from the river, and rising up just before the tall ramparts and spires of Castle Never, the tower given over to the city's mages was slim and high and all in polished grey stone. A glowing lantern hung over the closed doors, and Jaiyan found herself squinting at the runes carved above the lintel.

She had unearthed two rubies and a sharply-cut, beautiful emerald from somewhere at the bottom of her pack, underneath two books, a whetstone and a bottle of polish. Wrapped in squares of silk, she guessed the jewels had travelled with her since the forest outside Hilltop. Upon seeing them, Deekin had squeaked and declared the emerald to be the same emerald lifted from J'Nar's corpse, in the snowy mountains, all those months back.

She remembered how ridiculously _young_ and _lost_ she had felt, sneaking through cobwebbed stone corridors, a sword in one hand, a kobold bard on her left side, and wearing the leathers her mother had given her. After the confrontation with J'Nar, she had hurriedly stuffed handfuls of coins and ropes of pearls into her pack, along with a cluster of jewels Deekin found somewhere on J'Nar's body.

"This definitely be the place, Boss," Deekin supplied helpfully. "Boss sure about this?"

She thought she was. _But then, you've been short on coin before, and you've never lashed out like that before, have you? No, but Valen wasn't around then to be lashed out at. _She knew she had, in the past, said some stupid, sometimes regrettable things after a few, but she had never before snarled at him – her tiefling, her Valen – to leave her the hells alone. _What's next, swearing at him, slamming doors on him and throwing empty tankards at the wall? _

_No. Get yourself to Sigil, find something to do, and stop worrying. _

She shook herself free of her thoughts and managed to say, shakily, "Yes, I think so. Deeks, is there any chance we'll get munched or chopped apart by something on our way?"

"Boss means on way through portal?"

"Yes."

"Umm…Deekin not knows. Deekin hopes not."

"Well, that steadies my nerves." She shared a quick grin with Valen, found the door handle, and pushed. Inside, the air tasted of charcoal, and something metallic. The high ceiling was arched and lost in smoke, and Jaiyan wrinkled her nose. She was about to mutter something about magical experiments that smell foul, but footsteps through the nearest archway interrupted her.

A man appeared between the high pillars, thin and tall and clad in rich robes. Bright star patterns marched across the deep blue of the velvet beneath, and his face above was ascetic. Hawkish dark eyes flicked from Jaiyan to Valen, and skimmed past Deekin. "May I…help you?"

He was human, Jaiyan saw. Human and maybe in his mid-forties, his face lined and almost cadaverous. He clasped bone-white hands in front of him while he waited, and she was reminded of carved statues and alabaster. "Yes," she said, a little unsteady. "We need to speak to a wizard. Someone who knows how to open and control portals."

"Indeed?" He arched a black eyebrow. "And you have payment?"

_Well, at least wizards are mercenary as anyone else. _"Yes, we do. Don't you want to know more about, well, what we're going to ask?"

"No," he answered, icily. "That is not my business, nor my interest. Wait here, and I will find someone for you."

She ducked her head in thanks, but he had already swept away, the gold-embroidered hem of his robes whispering across the floor. She turned, and found Valen watching her, his expression vaguely quizzical. "I've never had much to do with wizards," she said, awkwardly.

"It's alright," he murmured. "Neither have I."

"There were wizards in Lith My'athar, weren't there?"

"Yes, but Gulrhys looked after them." He shrugged. "I had little to do with them."

They waited, and Jaiyan dragged her gaze across the pillars, and up to the wreathing smoke above. She wondered if the ceiling was always hazy here, or if some magical test truly had gone awry. She was on the verge of commenting loudly on the tedium of waiting for mages, when a shadow curved around a nearby pillar. Another wizard, and this one elvish, she noticed. Slight and strikingly attractive, she noticed, and with a level, piercing gaze.

"You require a portal," the elf said, flat and bland. "Where?"

"Sigil," she spluttered.

"Sigil," the elf repeated. "The City of Doors. Well, this may take some time. Do you have payment?"

She passed across the jewels. "Two rubies, one emerald."

He unlaced the small leather bag, tipped the stones out onto his palm. "Beautifully cut," he allowed. "Particularly the emerald. I won't ask where you found it." One corner of his mouth twitched. "Come with me."

They followed him, across a wide chamber with black and white patterns on the floor, and up twisting stairs. Pale torches fluttered in iron brackets, and threw jagged shadows against the stone. Down another corridor, and up another set of stairs, while Jaiyan wondered just how much the single tower outside hid. Finally, the elf led them into his laboratory, hidden somewhere behind a large library and a set of chambers that seemed designed for studying golems.

The elf said nothing, only motioned them inside and safely hid the jewels on his bookshelf, between two tall tomes. Then he stood near two curling prongs of stone and spread his hands.

Watching, Jaiyan followed the agile motion of his fingers, and wanted to ask what he was doing. She glanced at Deekin and whispered, "What's he doing?"

"Calling the portal, Boss," the kobold replied, in the same low tone. "Deekin not know how to do such things. Deekin only read about them."

Between the wizard's hands, the air glowed and twisted. Some strange wind plucked at Jaiyan's hair and cape, and she saw the wizard's robes as they ruffled. He was muttering odd syllables, and his eyes were fixed unwaveringly on some point between the two lances of stone. She reached out blindly, felt Valen's hand wrap around hers, comfortingly big and warm.

She was not sure what she expected; maybe an explosion of light and the whine of erupting magic. Instead, a piercingly bright pin-point hovered between the elf's hands, hanging steady in the air. He murmured another string of syllables, and she saw his eyes close. The white light snapped out wide, and she smelled sulfur, and hot iron. Stretching from his fingers to the upright spars, a pale web shimmered. Light shifted behind it, blurring and teasing Jaiyan's eyes when she tried to look at it. The elf muttered a final few words and gently disentangled his hands from the glowing curtain, leaving it suspended between the stone points.

"Well?" the elf demanded. "Are you going to use it, or not? It will not stand indefinitely, and I will not be giving you those jewels back."

Jaiyan dragged her gaze from the rippling portal. "You sure it goes to Sigil?"

"Little girl," the elf said, heavily. "I have studied the arcane arts for more years than your lifetime or the lifetime of any human will likely see."

"I was only asking," she muttered. "Thank you."

The elf inclined his head. "You are most welcome."

_As was that emerald, I'll bet,_ she thought, amused. She turned to Valen and Deekin, and grinned when saw almost identical expressions of awe and anticipation. "Are we ready?"

Deekin gripped her hand. "Deekin be ready, Boss."

On her other side, Valen slipped an arm around her waist. "Hold on to me," he said firmly. "And don't let go. I don't want to lose you on the way."

She wound her hand through his belt, and felt the strange, hot wind buffet her face as they edged closer. She was pressed close to Valen's chest, with Deekin hugged up against her left side. She had the time to notice that the shimmering portal was purple, and streaked with whirling silver, and then they were stepping into its coldness, and her mind went dark.

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Imloth traipsed back across the inn yard, his sword sheathed at his hip, a quarterstaff over one shoulder, and aching in both calves and one side. Lately, after he had been stupid enough to complain about having too few sparring partners – the mercenaries and soldiers and guards who frequented the inn still looked too warily upon him – Durnan had taken him up on his unspoken offer, and enjoyed trading strokes when the taproom was quiet.

This afternoon, he had paid for underestimating the innkeeper again, and he wondered if he could persuade the Seer to enspell the throbbing pain out of his ribs. Still, the sparring kept him in shape and his reflexes working, and the sheer simplicity of a well-done sword drill always satisfied him.

He kicked the kitchen door open, and felt his skin turn icy when he saw the Seer, doubled over, her fingers rigid where they gripped the table. "What's happened?" He shed his quarterstaff at the door and made it to her in three quick steps. "What is it?"

Her head lolled against his shoulder, and he heard her breathing coming quick and sharp and staccato. "I…felt something."

"Felt something?" He braced her properly, then twisted his head so he could see her face. "What do you mean?"

"Like a dream…but a feeling."

Imloth gritted his teeth and pushed back the desire to bark out a demand to know exactly what was wrong. "What kind of a feeling?"

"I'm sorry." She straightened up, raked her fingers through her hair. "I need…forgive me. I need to pray."

"Of course," he said. "Will you be alright?"

She leaned heavily against him for a long moment. "Yes. I'm sorry, Imloth. I just need to…I need to pray."

With that, she left him alone in the kitchen, with apprehension gnawing at his belly, and sudden sweat on his palms. He ran his hands through his hair, and swore when his fingers caught against loose leather ties. The sensible half of his mind _knew_ he should allow not himself to be so jumpy, not around such ephemeral signs, if that was what they were, in any case.

_But you staked your life and the lives of your soldiers and that city you called home for a long time on her dreams and her feelings, didn't you?_

He heard footsteps behind him, and then Durnan's voice, gruffly questioning. "You alright, lad?"

"Yes." He shook himself, forced a half-smile. "Just…"

"Women?"

"In a way. I'm fine."

"Have it your way, lad." Durnan grinned. "Now come and help me in the taproom, and I'll tell you all about the time I knocked an ogre out with its own helmet."

Despite himself, Imloth laughed. "Do that, and I'll trade you the time I killed a giant spider with only a broken dagger."

"Damn drow, always got to go one better."

Still smiling, Imloth trailed after him, past the parlour, and into the taproom. But still, that knot of dread inside him had not melted, and he wondered what the Seer might discover while she prayed, or if Eilistraee would answer at all.


	8. Chapter 8

_First off, a big apology for the slowing-down current updates - tons of work and a five-day cold are horrible things to fight with. So a big thank you to everyone who's reading this, and a particular thank-you to Fyriel, who keeps reviewing but I can't reply directly, so - thank you so much, and I hope you enjoy the rest of it :)_

_**Chapter Eight – The City of Doors**_

After the screaming wind died away, and the feeling returned to her fingers, Jaiyan silently decided that some clever wizard somewhere absolutely _had_ to invent a way of travelling across the planes that did not involve being catapulted through a whirl of energy that felt being rammed through wet snow and then being dropped face-first onto stone afterwards. She rolled her shoulders, felt her muscles twinge, and then forgot entirely about whining when she looked up. "Valen?"

He was there beside her, tall and solid and with an arm around her. "Yes, my love?"

"There's…no sky."

He laughed. "Yes, there is."

"Well, it looks all wrong. It's a funny colour, to begin with." And it was, all flickering and in tones of shifting grey. She squinted, tried to see clouds, or stars, or anything else, and failed. "What time of day is it?"

"Nearly sunset," Valen answered. "As you would call it."

"How can you tell?"

"By the way the sky is changing."

She considered sticking her tongue out at him, but instead switched her attention to the dark shapes of spires and high roofs overhead. There was stone behind them, and cobbles beneath her feet. They were standing in the shadows of an archway, and the street slanted sharply away from them, plunging down the curve of a hill, towards a dark cluster of buildings. Above, jumbles of stone and wood leaned into each other. Platforms and balconies jutted from soaring towers, and Jaiyan could have sworn she could see stairways that swept down at impossible angles.

_At least,_ she thought, i_mpossible for anyone to walk on properly. _

"Boss!" Deekin grabbed at her arm. "Boss, look at all the things! Walking in the street!"

She blinked slowly. "Sorry, Deeks. You're ahead of me. I'm still transfixed by the architecture. Say, Valen, how do they make it all stand up without collapsing?"

Valen followed her gaze to where a top-heavy tower loomed over a building with blacked-out windows and smoke palling from three chimneys. "I'm not sure," he admitted. "I never saw anything collapse, though."

She nodded absently, and found her eyes wandering back over the sharp edges and odd slopes of the buildings nearest. Looking past them into the flickering grey distance made her head ache. Finally gazing down the street, she wondered if she should laugh or shy back under the archway and hope she would wake up back in Neverwinter.

"Jaiyan, beloved? Are you alright?"

"Yes," she stammered. "I'm just looking at…what is that?"

"Glabrezu," Valen explained. "Demon."

"Oh." She stared at the creature's broad, swaying back as it ambled down the street, one clawed hand on the hilt of a massive axe, and its huge, wolfish head held low and predatory. "Right. What's it doing?"

"Best not to ask," Valen said drily.

She dragged her gaze away from the lumbering demon, and tried desperately to find a smaller, more human shape in the crowd. It seemed that everywhere she looked, she saw odd forms with wings or horns or snake-like tails. She recognized a lithe, dark-haired succubus, and thought she spotted a trio of imps, fluttering along together, chirruping as they sped past a clutch of short, squat creatures that she could not name. _This is insane,_ she thought. _They're all just walking as if they're normal people, not looking at each other, just like people do in other cities. _

"Boss!" Deekin's cold nose nudged her hand. "Boss, Deekin sees an elf!"

She followed his pointing fingers, saw a slim-hipped, green-garbed figure darting through the crowd. Whoever he was, he did _look_ elvish, with tapering ears and an enviably slight frame. "Well. How about that."

"Feel any better?" Valen asked.

"A little," she said, grudgingly. "Am I likely to get killed if I stare too much?"

He laughed. "Possibly. Come on. Let's find an inn."

Perfectly content to step aside and let him lead, she gripped his hand and trailed him down the hill, through the press of the crowd. Deekin grabbed at her other wrist, and she considered briefly what a spectacle they must make, two blinking outsiders and a tiefling, trying not to lose each other. Valen shouldered through the throng as if he knew where he was going, and Jaiyan hurried to keep pace. Eeling around the bulk of something with huge shoulders and a long, elegant neck, she pulled Deekin alongside her. If she lost him among the crowd, she did not fancy her chances of finding him at all, never mind in one piece.

The street swung around at the bottom of the hill, crossing a wide avenue. Here, the pace of things slowed somewhat, and Jaiyan could hear merchants calling prices. A quick glance at the draped stalls showed her traders hawking jewels and weapons, potions and bolts of cloth, fluttering pixies in bell-shaped jars and salted meat. Past a pair of high, haughty-looking statues that rose a good twenty feet or more above the cobbles, a wood-fronted building nestled in the shadows of two spiraling towers. Jaiyan stared, had a second look at the ungainly way the parapets reared out, tried to figure out how the second of the towers had not yet spilled its stone blocks onto the avenues below, and gave up.

"There," Valen said, pointing.

"That's a _tavern?_"

He smiled. "See the sign?"

She looked over the shoulders of a group of white-skinned, lizard-like creatures, and saw spidery words winding past a fading image of an elegant golden feather. "The Curling Feather? What kind of a name is that for a tavern?"

"The Yawning Portal?" he countered.

"Well, fine, but at least there there's a practical reason for the silly name." She followed him across the avenue and up the stairs between the towering statues. Her fascinated gaze drifted across the merchant stalls, fixing on a handful of strange purple jewels, set in looping silver, that some reptilian-looking creature passed across to a hooded figure.

Valen steered her across to the tavern door, and paused, the light in his blue eyes suddenly serious. "When we get inside, let me do the talking."

She nodded. "Alright."

"I mean it," he added firmly.

She grinned up at him. "I promise. Even _I _can keep my mouth shut sometimes."

"I have never before seen such a sight," he said, straight-faced.

Jaiyan gave him a good-natured shove, and laughed when he shot her an injured look. He scooped her hand into his, and led them across the threshold, and into a billow of smoke. She blinked watering eyes, and made out a crackling fire, and tables wreathed in blue haze, and drapes half across the windows. Not a one of the patrons was human, she noted, and decided that she did not care.

She half-heard Valen bantering with the innkeeper, while she looked through lowered eyelashes and studied the taproom's occupants again. Most of them were hunched over their drinks, staring blankly down with the jaded kind of look she had seen inside most taverns. Others sat in groups, softly chatting, or playing dice. This was a quiet place, she realised, the kind of tavern usually found down an alley, or around a corner, hidden and away from noisier, bustling places.

Valen's arm tightened around her waist again, jolting her from her thoughts. Coins clinked on the bar, and Valen pushed them across to the innkeeper.

Who picked them up with a pale hand, the skin mottled with a strange, spiraling pattern. Intrigued, Jaiyan looked further up and discovered that, while the innkeeper's neck and face were free of such markings, his eyes burned a pale yellow, and the thick, curling hair that tumbled past his collar was glossy and almost flaxen. She almost blurted a thoughtless question, remembered her promise to Valen, and instead let him guide her away from the bar.

Across the taproom, with Deekin jogging along behind, and barely a whisper raised between the quietly drinking patrons, she gripped Valen's hand harder and murmured, "Do they have a bath-house here?"

He laughed. "They've a maid who'll fill a bath in our room for an extra copper."

The stairs led up onto a wide, lamp-lit landing, where the air smelled of hay and something else, something that reminded Jaiyan of armour polish. After ushering Deekin into his room, she trailed Valen to the door across the floor. "The innkeeper…?"

Valen was fumbling with a heavy bronze key, frowning. "Yes?"

"Was…was he a tiefling?"

"Yes," he said, sounding surprised. "How did you know?"

She shrugged. "I don't know." She had seen no horns on the pale-haired man's head, but there had been a coiled intensity about him, in the tilt of his face and the set of his shoulders. "Something about his eyes. Something that reminded me of you, I suppose."

"Oh, really?" He forced the key around with a low growl, and finally heaved the door open.

Cool air rushed out to meet them, and Jaiyan shivered when she stepped across the threshold. Pale, grayish light streamed in through the open curtains, slanting across the bed and washbasin and empty fireplace. While Valen locked the door behind them, she wandered across the creaking floorboards, stopped at the window, and forgot to shed her pack and cape.

The roofs and domes and high spires of the city rose up before her, piling one upon another until she could make out little detail amid the haze and the blurring lights that lined bridges and blazed at tower windows. She could still see people, figures, thronging wide avenues and narrow alleys, or crowding into the marketplace below.

"There are many tieflings in Sigil," Valen murmured from behind her. She heard his footsteps, and then his arms were sliding around her, pulling her back against him. "Should I be worried?"

She grinned and twisted around. "Only around ones who remind me of you, I suppose. Do I hear a hint of jealousy?"

"Only the slightest," he answered, smiling. "Now, is my lady pleased?"

"And overwhelmed, quite enraptured, and almost speechless."

"Speechless, indeed?" He grinned, ducked his head forward, and captured her lips in a soft, lingering kiss. "I am rather tempted to take advantage of such a situation."

The pliant, teasing motion of his mouth on hers stole her thoughts, and the sarcastic retort she had planned. "You'd better," she managed, almost breathlessly.

He laughed again, that soft, warm sound that she was almost certain she had never heard in company other than just his. Jaiyan opened her mouth to say something else, but his hands travelled up to the straps on her backpack, and then to the clasps on her cape. He found the snarled ties on her tunic next, and when he scooped her up into his arms, and carried her across to the bed, she decided to happily ignore the gleaming lights of Sigil behind her.

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Valen stirred, felt first the rough touch of the blankets, and then the air, soughing across his bare skin. Still warm, he noted, after he had finally caved in sometime after midnight and ventured downstairs in search of firewood. He started to roll over, and stopped when he realized that Jaiyan was still coiled around him, her head against his chest and her legs wrapped around his. He sat up slightly, and let his gaze linger on her hair, thick and brown and unreeled across him and the sheet beneath.

She seemed small, almost vulnerably so, and he wondered again if he had made the right choice in agreeing to return to Sigil.

He knew the city's vagaries well, had learned the cruel business of survival on its twisting streets, and he supposed he could keep Jaiyan from proper harm. _Besides,_ he thought, _she's been leaping head-first into ridiculous danger since long before you met her. Just keep her breathing, and we'll survive Sigil. _

Demons and devils walked the streets here, and once, that would have left him riddled with apprehension. Even as a child, he had hidden himself behind statues or columns or corners and watched devils march pass, and felt his blood seething. Grimash't and his battle slaves had taught him what that meant, and how best to let the anger take over, and turn him into something mindless, and mad.

_But that was before the Underdark,_ he remembered, _before the Seer, and before Jaiyan. _

He recalled Cania, and standing amid the cold wastes, while his beloved steeled herself to talk to the woman called the Knower of Names. She had spoken Jaiyan's True Name, and his, and it had been with the strangest frisson of awareness that he had heard himself named Oeskathine, the Demon-wrestler.

Too many years back to count, even if he could remember them properly, his mother had once sat him down at her dresser, and looked him straight in the eye.

_"Valen," she said. "I need to talk to you." _

_He looked up, all coltish legs and arms and a shock of ungroomed scarlet hair. "About what?" _

_"Your father." A heavy note of regret crept into her voice, and he wondered why. But she had gone on to tell him of the cambion, unnamed, whoever he was, who had been a customer. Like all the Mistress' workers, his mother drank a potion that should have kept her from thickening with child, but such things were less than infallible, he learned. She kept the details from him, but he understood that she had been sick and forced to work, and whatever the potion was meant to accomplish, it could not if she had thrown it up some hours prior. _

_"So I have these." He raised his hand, touched his horns. "What does it mean?" He had seen many others on the streets of Sigil, horned, or with snapping tails, or wings, or an unsettling gaze that could terrify a snake. He had never particularly thought himself out of the ordinary, but neither had he tried to wonder why his mother was so simply human. _

_"It means you have demon's blood, Valen," she replied, softly. "You're a tiefling." _

_"I know," he said innocuously. "The others outside called me a tiefling. I knew that." _

_But he did not know what it meant, even though she told him of the Blood Wars, and how demons and devils fought and slaughtered, and how the sheer need to kill would pound through his veins. She had tried to explain, but he had been too young, and just nodded, and tried to not to think about how her voice had wavered. _

Now, thinking, with his gaze absently on a wayward lock of Jaiyan's hair, he wondered why his mother had known such things, and even why she was in Sigil. _Had she travelled there, an innocent, or had she been born to the turning, winding streets as truly as he had? _

But he himself had never learned, and Grimash't had only taught him to kill, quickly or slowly, and revel in shed blood.

_But she spoke your True Name,_ he reminded himself. _She spoke your True Name in the Reaper's place, and stilled your demon blood. Rid you of it, and its tempting. _

But what was it the Reaper had said? _"It means you are no longer a slave to the demon in your blood. You still carry your infernal heritage, but you will tame and control it. Not the other way around."_

He was still not sure what it all meant. It had been in Grimash't's care, and then in Cania, that his blood had overtaken him to such terrible, violent effect; never here, never on the streets of Sigil.

He shook his head, tried to drag himself from such thoughts. _This is absurd. Stop worrying. You're here now. You know this place. _

But the lingering fear remained, that he was scrabbling for some justification for the fluttering anticipation that he still felt. _Back in Sigil. Back on streets that he knew. _

Beside him, Jaiyan murmured something to herself and turned over, dragging his arm with her when she burrowed underneath the pillows. He smiled and brushed her hair away from her face. Feeling vaguely idle, he curled himself around her much slighter shape, his hand clasped between both of hers, and his face against the nape of her neck. He would wake her soon enough if she did not stir on her own, but for now, he was content to lie beside her and wait.

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Grey light poured in through the taproom windows, painting long, pale stripes across uneven floorboards. Dust clouds swirled above the table Jaiyan had her elbows planted on, and she found herself considering – and not for the first time – that cheap and grubby taverns must be the same, all the worlds over. A bare handful of other patrons occupied the other tables – two were eating, three others sat and stared blankly into their cups, and a third group quietly talked. She had expected more sidelong glances, if not outright comments, and perversely found herself a little disappointed.

"Boss?" Deekin peered at her over a plate of warm bread. "Boss be thinking?"

She laughed and returned her attention to the cup between her hands. The drink inside was hot and steaming and tasted vaguely of honey, though she was a little apprehensive about asking the innkeeper exactly what was _in_ it. "Sorry. Bad habit."

Deekin clicked his tongue. "Deekin not sure he should ask…but…Boss and Goat-man…feeling better?"

She chewed at the inside of her cheek. Valen had vanished outside to catch his bearings properly, and made them both promise not to set foot outside the tavern before he returned. "Ah…guess you heard the fight we had, then."

"Only Deekin and the whole of the docks, Boss."

She glared at him for a moment before dissolving into laughter. "Oh, Deekin."

"Yes, Boss?" he inquired innocently. "What is it?"

"You know what." She leaned her chin on her hands. "But yes, we are." She studied him, the narrow slant of his head, and his deep-set, black eyes. "Are _you_ alright? About being here?"

He shrugged philosophically. "Deekin goes wherever the wind takes him. Or wherever Boss decides to go. Whichever." He grinned then, all sharp teeth. "Deekin feels that he be very far from Old Master's cave, though."

"I know what you mean." Jaiyan sipped at the drink, let its sweet, slippery taste fill her mouth. "Do you remember that night?"

"Remember? Deekin not forgets."

There was a world of memory in those words, she knew. She had been young and stumbling, and whatever cocky sureness she thought Drogan's training had given her had fled in the face of the attack and the bitterly cold night. _And the kobold_, she recalled. He had been small and shivering, wearing patched leathers, and edging hesitantly out of the snow-heavy trees. Holding up a wrapped bundle, and pleading that she not try to hurt him.

The last time she had seen kobolds, they had attacked the village, set fire to the stables behind the tavern, and killed too many people that she knew. But he had been so ridiculously unassuming, and had not even bothered to unsling the crossbow he carried across his back. So she had warily lowered her sword, and promised that she was not there to harm him.

"Do you ever want to go back?"

Deekin tapped his claws against the tabletop. "To the hills?"

"Yes. All those caves, where Tymofarrar lived?"

"Nope. Well, Deekin thinks maybe, sometimes." Another shrug. "Sometimes Deekin thinks he might want to meet other kobolds, and maybe teach them things. About books and songs and adventures. But then…Deekin thinks he prefers being here, with Boss."

She grinned, mostly to stop the sudden, absurd rush of excitement. "Even if we get killed in some dismal back alley by something not entirely human?"

Deekin gave a laboured sigh. "If Boss gets killed in some dismal back alley, Deekin will be sure to write something pretty and show it to all the kobolds that he teaches."


	9. Chapter 9

_Just a quick note: this chapter is not quite as long as I thought it would be. That is mainly because the main character in question kept her segment going longer than I thought, so I ended up letting her have the whole chapter._

_**Chapter Nine – Outsider**_

Water, dripping down stone walls, and splashing into the groove worn into the floor near the door; again and again, a rhythmic, irritating tempo. Nathyrra sighed and tried to block out the sound, but her mind kept drifting back to it, that simplest of noises that, this moment, seemed to drill into her skull. She rolled over, nestled herself into the warm space left by the drow male she had enjoyed the evening with. Briefly wondering if she should call him back, she burrowed deeper under the blankets and tried to will herself to sleep.

But her thoughts were roiling, and dreams eluded her. There was still too much to do, and she wanted to be back out in the city, with her workers, observing or shouting orders as the rebuilding continued. True enough, the temple was only a hairsbreadth from complete, but she wanted those last newly-cut blocks pushed into place, and the scaffolding torn down.

Nathyrra spent her days trying to fit in the time to oversee the workers and run her soldiers through their paces, while trying to ensure that the city's food supplies were shared out fairly.

She slammed a fist into the nearest pillow and groaned. This had all seemed so much simpler when she deferred to the Seer, and Valen and Imloth were there to round up the recruits and march them across to the training square. Not that she had encountered any true rebellion or discontent; it was more that there was simply _so much_ to do, and she seemed to be doing most of it alone.

_Without guidance,_ she thought, and chewed on her lower lip. _Without the Seer to pray for help from Eilistraee. _

She had clerics in the city, and sometimes prayed herself, but no goddess-granted favours entered her dreams. Still, the brutal lessons of survival Menzoberranzan and the Valsharess had taught her rang true; the drow in Lith My'athar – _her drow_, she reminded herself – still lived, and her guards were well-trained, and never for a instant were the gates or the walls left undefended.

Not that there had been any attack, not since the rebuilding had begun. Scout troops sent out into the darkness had reported only small parties of enemy drow, perhaps stragglers from the Valsharess' army who had somehow survived the Arch-devil's ascent up to Waterdeep. Eight days of violent reprisal had seen the fifteen leagues closest to Lith My'athar mopped clean of enemy soldiers, though scouts often ventured out into the shadows to contend with umber hulks or duergar.

Still, drow did not trust easily or well, and Nathyrra already found herself wondering which soldier, merchant, assassin or scout would rise to challenge her position. She had held them together through these early stages of rebuilding, true enough, and she carried with her the respect of being among the Seer's most trusted companions. But still, the insidious thought wormed into her head; still, someone, at some time, would seek to topple her, and have her killed.

_And if it was me, _she thought wryly, _I would've done it already. _

She sighed, gave up, and kicked the blankets away. The chill air touched her skin, and she winced as she scrabbled around for her clothes. Since the return to the city, she had taken to wearing light armour over her assassin's leathers, even though she was sure Imloth would have laughed at her for it. Part of her mind assured her that it made her look all the more imposing, while the other half wondered if such thinly-beaten metal would stop a dagger-thrust to the back.

With the speed born of old habit and long hours of training, she slipped into the leathers and snapped the armour closed over the top. Her boots followed, along with her dagger collection, and the pair of black gloves that had survived the journey from Menzoberranzan.

Down the stairs, and into the temple's main chamber, where she found four clerics praying. The air was twined thick with incense smoke, and they gazed at the floor with rapt eyes, barely noticing her. She glided past them, and out into the lamplit shadows of the city. The traders' stalls were silent at this hour, though lights gleamed at windows in buildings from the temple all the way to the walls. She crossed the square, weaving past the forge and the newly-built infirmary. Footsteps rang against the stone to her left, and she turned to see half a dozen soldiers, almost sprinting as they headed for the walls. A quick glance proved the straggler of them to be a young male whose complacency during sword drill had earned him a stern lecture.

Forgetting propriety, Nathyrra simply lifted a hand and shouted out, "Talaghar! What are you doing?"

Startled motionless, the male stared over his shoulder through wide crimson eyes. "Matron Mother?"

Vaguely regretting her decision to have them refer to her as such – _the Seer never needed the trappings of such a title_, her mind jeered – she strode towards him. "Yes. You will tell me what you are doing."

He ducked his head. "Reporting to the gates, Matron Mother."

"Why? The guard is not changed for some time, if I am correct."

"You are, Matron Mother." He swallowed nervously. "Scout troops reported an outsider, alone. Only a short time ago, Matron Mother."

Sudden anxiety lanced through her. _An outsider here, and no one came to wake her and warn her? _"Drow?"

"Yes, Matron Mother."

"Very well." She raked another glance over him. "Let us see to this outsider of yours, then."

The quick, silent walk to the gates was disturbed only by Talaghar's darting glances, directed usually half through the long fall of his hair. She was tempted to ask who had roused him and his contingent, why they had been called to the gates first, and why the hells no one had been sent to wake the Matron Mother. The rebellious thought surfaced, that her own mother would never have permitted such a slight.

_But then again, we don't really want to paint the temple in a nice new coat of blood like she would have, do we? _

Nathyrra smirked, mostly to herself, and rounded the last corner. The gates were flung almost half open, and a ring of soldiers stood with their backs to her. She saw torchlight gleam off drawn weapons, and heard harsh questions snarled. The reply – whatever it was – was too quiet for even her drow ears to make out. She saw one of her soldiers laugh disbelievingly, and then heard the smack of wood against flesh.

"Stand down!" Her own voice seemed too loud, but she pushed through the soldiers, ignoring their startled cries. "Stand down," she snapped again. "Would you bear drawn weapons in my presence?"

The soldier nearest shuffled, gritted his teeth, and finally sheathed his sword. "Forgive us, Matron Mother," he muttered. "We thought…"

"What?"

"We thought…we should deal with…"

She never once tore her gaze from him. "Thought what?"

The soldier quailed. "Forgive us."

While the others lowered swords and halberds, she turned her attention onto the crumpled shape on the floor. _The outsider_, she thought, mind racing. _A surviving scout? Herald of a war party who took a wrong turn in the caverns? Lost soul in the wrong place? _"Is he alive?"

The soldier nodded. "Yes, Matron Mother."

She eyed the prone drow, could see nothing past torn leathers and blood threading through white hair and the sharp edge of one cheekbone. "How did he approach?"

"Walked straight of the darkness," another soldier said. "Hands out, threw his sword away. Bade us open the gates and give him sanctuary."

She arched her eyebrows. "So you did what? Opened the gates and beat the sense out of him?"

"Not…entirely, Matron Mother."

"Which perfectly explains why he's unconscious." She sighed, understanding their apprehension. _For all they knew, he could have had five hundred armed assassins behind him. _"Did he say anything else?"

"Only that he had come from deep caverns, and that he thought he would not see lights again before his death."

Nathyrra frowned. Something cold skittered down her spine. _From the deep caverns…_She knew there were tunnels and caves and huge networks of interlocking stone corridors that neither she nor any other drow living had seen. "Check him for hidden weapons," she heard herself say. "Then take him to the temple and have him cleaned up."

She spun on her heel and ignored the incredulous grumbling from the soldiers behind her. While they argued about who was going to carry the new arrival, she stalked away, and wondered again what had caused him to come stumbling to the gates of Lith My'athar.

_Or perhaps you are worrying too much, and he is simply lost, alone, and perhaps not devoted to Lolth. _

At the temple steps, she turned, and saw two of her soldiers bearing the unconscious outsider. She noticed them being none too careful about the way they hefted him, and she found she did not want to call them to task over it. _They're drow, and he's drow, and what should he expect, trying to enter a closed city? _

Still, the lingering thought remained, that the Seer would have treated him differently. _Not differently……better. _

She motioned the soldiers inside, and up to an empty set of chambers on the first floor. There, she dismissed them without a word, and called for her servants to fill a bath and prepare clean clothes and food. While they bustled to find hot water, she turned to the new arrival, laid supine on the bed, head turned to one side and fingers loosely clasped.

He was thin, she noticed first. The worrying, privation-carved thinness of long-term hunger. His cheeks were hollow, the closed eyes above deep-set. A quick glance at his hands and arms showed him to be almost dangerously slim, his wrists small enough that she supposed she could wrap a finger and thumb around them with no trouble. His leathers were patched, rubbed almost grey in places. Torn cloth was visible through wrenched gaps, and she could see old bloodstains. He was not bleeding onto the sheets, though she suspected whatever injuries he had sustained might be old.

Nathyrra frowned and perched on the end of the bed. She was going to have to wake him, and find out who he was. For a fleeting, horrible moment, she half-wished her soldiers had killed him on sight. _At least then he'd be a problem I wouldn't have had to deal with. He'd be a dead scout, an enemy defeated. Not this strange problem who asked for sanctuary. _

_Of course, slip him a dagger to the ribs, and wait while he bleeds his life out, and then there's _nothing_ to worry over. No stranger, and no questions asked of a Matron Mother who tried to wake an injured, probably dying outsider. _

No drow alive would dare question such a turn of events, she knew. And if a dagger wound was discovered on his body, well, who could say it had not been inflicted out in the treachery of the Underdark?

Nathyrra sighed, and cursed herself. Wondering why she had even bothered considering such an alternative, she leaned over him, grasped his shoulder, and shook.

His head snapped to one side, and his eyes opened to red slits. His breathing was coming hard and shallow, and she saw his hands drop to his belt.

"You're unarmed," she said, steely. "Lie back, and we can talk."

His hands opened, and his eyes swiveled and pinned her. Crimson and narrow, his gaze reminded her of something wounded, something driven to its last breath. "And you are?"

"Matron Mother of this city."

He laughed, a rasping, dry sound. "And what city is that?"

"Not yet," she said warningly. "We'll talk, and I'll help you, and then we'll see."

"You mean _I'll_ talk," he snarled.

"Yes. For now." She let a hand slide to the hilt of the dagger hanging at her left hip. "There's hot water coming, and food, and clean clothes."

He scowled. "In exchange for..?"

"Nothing," she answered. "My soldiers said you asked for sanctuary. I am not certain from what, but I can give you a bath and a hot meal and new set of clothes."

The silence stretched between them, while he studied her through wary eyes. One side of his mouth twitched up. "You're not a very good Matron Mother, are you?"

She snorted. "I can have you on the rack and flogged to ribbons, if it will make you feel better."

"Who are you?" He tried to sit up, but pain wrenched a gasp from his lips.

"Later," she said. "You'll talk first."

The door opened, and her servants glided in soundlessly, carrying hot water. Steam wreathed into the air, and Nathyrra saw the outsider's face slacken.

"You weren't lying," he muttered.

"No. And not about the food or the clothes, either." She studied him. "Can you stand?"

He lurched forward, and she heard the breath hiss between his teeth. "No, I…"

"Come here." Very carefully, she helped him up off the bed, taking his weight against her shoulder. He was emaciated, she realized, his eyes wide and darting, and his whole frame was racked with fine tremors. The sharp line of his shoulder pressed against hers, and she wondered how far he had travelled, and what had reduced him to this, all instincts and hunger and snarling his distrust at a Matron Mother.

She guided him through to the adjoining chamber, where the servants had filled the bath and left folded clothes. When his knees nearly buckled, she pushed him onto the stone edge of the bath and made him sit. She found the tangled laces and buttons on his leathers, and pried them open. He snarled and tried to bat her hands away, and she found that she was not angry, or even impatient.

"You have to let me," she said, quietly. "I am not going to hurt you."

"Yet," he muttered. But his hands fell limp at his sides again, and he let her work his ruined boots off and peel his leathers away. Beneath, his shirt and leggings were a shredded wreck, with stitches pulled loose and trailing, and huge holes showing through.

Clinically, she stripped off the rest of his clothes and steered him down into the bath. The hot water surged over his black, scar-striped skin, and she saw him sigh. _All drow males have scars,_ she thought. _His could be from anything. Poorly-handled encounter with an umber hulk, a skirmish, a flogging from his mistress, anything. _

"Are you injured?" she asked.

"Half-healed," he said, his voice low and thick with exhaustion or pain.

"I have healers here," she told him. "Are you bleeding?"

His eyes opened again, scarlet and angry. "Why?"

"So you can be healed, and so you do not bleed over the clothes I'm going to give you."

His eyebrows arched. "There's some cuts on my back I think I pulled open."

"Anything else?"

He shook his head.

Nathyrra saw the stubborn set to his chin, and recognized something very close to herself. "If you don't tell me, I'll just have to check."

"Forgive me," he said, sardonic. "But I think there's little left of me to appeal to a Matron Mother. Even one as striking as yourself." He leaned forward slightly, catching his lower lip between his teeth. "Scrapes and cuts. Nothing serious."

Stretching from his left shoulder almost to the top of his hip, long, thick gashes tracked the lean curve of his back. She saw blood welling through half-closed skin on some of them, and the puffiness of infection around others. "Anything else?"

He gestured to the inside of one thigh, and the calf beneath. "Gash and a puncture wound."

Following the motion of his hand, Nathyrra saw a long slice that tracked past his knee, and the hole carved out of his calf muscle further down. Such wounds ruined any hope of running properly, she knew. The curiosity was bubbling in her, and she wanted to know where he had come from, and how he had kept moving with a chunk of flesh missing from his leg.

"You'll eat," she said firmly. "And then I'll have you healed."

"And then I'll talk," he responded.

"You can start now." She leaned down, chose a square of soap, and pressed it into his hands. "What is your name?"

He stared at the soap as if it might bite him. "Andaryn."

"Where are you from?"

"Originally?" He worked the soap between his fingers, and seemed surprised with the white lather that coated his skin. "Eryndlyn, but that was many years ago."

Nathyrra regarded him again, and tried to guess his age. _He's too thin and too worn,_ she thought. _No way to know. _"And more recently?"

"That would be telling, wouldn't it?" He scrubbed at his arms and shoulders and chest, and she saw the water darken around him as he scraped the grime off his skin. The trailing ends of his hair were soaking up the wetness, and she noticed that he had no braids, no strips of leather in the white strands to keep them away from his face. _A choice, or a necessity of survival? _Her gaze followed the ribbon of blood trailing from the left side of his head, and how he barely noticed it, or no longer cared.

"Were you a soldier?"

"Scout."

"With who?"

"A group of foolhardy young drow stupid enough to listen to orders and go too deep."

_He came from deep caverns,_ the soldiers had said. _And would not see light again before his death_.

He would give her nothing, she knew, until he had some solid proof of her intentions, one way or another. "Come on," she said. "You should eat."

She helped him out of the bath, and there was a clumsy, confused moment when the water sloshed around his ankles and he swayed. He leaned against her again, his skin warm and slick beneath her fingers. She wrapped a heavy towel around his shoulders and stepped away while he patted himself dry. His face twisted when he rubbed the fabric across his back and down the inside of his leg. _How long had he run, and from what? _

Biting back the urge to demand answers, Nathyrra held out a clean set of plain black leggings, with a shirt and tunic and boots that were a close enough fit. He fumbled with the laces and asked, "My weapons?"

"Are safe."

The tunic hung too loose on his bony frame, and even the leggings seemed to drown him. Even so, he followed her back into the bigger chamber, and sat in the chair she pointed to. The servants had left a tray with flat bread and sweetened wine and cold rothe meat. She passed the tray across and half-expected him to spurn the food for fear of poison or potions or somesuch.

Instead, Andaryn stared at the small tray, dug his fingers into the bread and attacked it.

"Slower," Nathyrra said, smiling slightly. "If you're starving, your stomach won't forgive you for gorging."

He chewed thoughtfully, but his gaze did not leave the bread in his hands. "What have I done to deserve this?"

"Nothing," she answered, a little sharper than intended. "I could see your ribcage clear through your skin. What was I meant to do, have you fall over and die at my feet?"

He snorted around a mouthful of bread. He did not answer, only kept eating, slowly and steadily. She saw his face change when he switched to the white wine, and he gave something that might have been half a smirk, half a grin. "Nice."

"There's a trader in the city I buy it from."

He arched a white eyebrow at her, but said nothing. He downed the rest of the cup, and turned his attention to the cold rothe meat.

"What were you expecting when you came here?" Nathyrra asked carefully.

"I don't know." Andaryn's hands stilled on the tray. "Maybe death. Maybe not."

She drew in a steadying breath, noticed how his eyes were still flickering, dancing past her to the lamps, and back again to the tray on his lap. "You are in Lith My'athar," she said finally. "And you are safe."


	10. Chapter 10

_This chapter is a little longer than usual, mainly because there didn't seem any way to cut it off without spoiling it, so I decided to just run with it. I might end up with aiming for this kind of length from now on, since the story is branching out quite a lot. Anyway, reviews always welcome, and Bioware owns nearly everything. _

_**Chapter Ten – Echoes**_

Eleven days in Sigil had not quite quelled Jaiyan's sense of _not-quite-belonging_. There had only been a handful of muttered comments concerning clueless primes – that she heard – and she had managed to steer clear of accidentally insulting anyone at the tavern, but even so, she felt curiously unmoored. The sky did not behave properly, she could not name half the creatures she saw walking down the streets, and Deekin's dramatic explanation about who exactly the Lady of Pain was had made her determined never to look out of the tavern windows at night again.

Still, despite the fact she seemed to spend most of every day gawking, she had decided she rather liked the city. _Well, maybe not liked……intrigued by. Fascinated by. Scared by. Maybe we'll get to like, eventually. _

Valen had found them a brief, three-day guard commission for a trader who needed a handful of protectors for a wagonload of goods bound north through the city. After surviving, accepting payment, and coming to the conclusion that mercenary work was the same anywhere on the planes, Jaiyan figured that perhaps they would not starve too soon. And every evening at The Curling Feather, Deekin preened himself in front of a small audience who had learned that daring a kobold bard to sing his longest songs meant they would be in for a long night.

She still would not venture out of the tavern alone, and nor was she sure Valen would have let her. Still, the steep, rolling streets of the city with their strange, curling buildings looming overhead seemed infinitely less terrifying with her tiefling beside her. She could not make head or tail of the way the alleyways intersected, or the way the streets rolled up past temples and across wide squares, only to split into a maze of narrow walkways. When she finally cornered Valen about it, and how exactly he managed to not get them hopelessly lost, he only shrugged and smiled and told her that Sigil was in his blood.

Today, walking beneath the shifting, strange sky, with Valen's arm loosely around her shoulders, she found herself staring again. This time, her gaze was pinned on a high rock shelf that looked like a thousand rough-hewn slabs had been shoved together haphazard above the avenues below. Sharp shadows from the building slanted across the cobbles, and Jaiyan tried to keep thoughts of landslides and tumbling rocks from her mind.

She glanced across at Valen. "Are we any closer?"

"You have the patience of a child sometimes, beloved." He tightened his grip on her waist. "Soon."

Earlier, after leaving Deekin immersed in his notes, Valen had murmured something about a surprise for her and led her out into the teeming streets. Even now, marching along beside her, his high cheekbones were flushed, and his eyes flickered, not quite meeting hers. He had refused to elaborate, and only guided her along a wide avenue, towards clusters of wooden buildings that rose no more than two storeys above the ground. Behind, on both sides, tall stone towers speared up, dark and brooding against the sky.

Some four or five days ago, Jaiyan had found herself a little disappointed that Valen recognized none of the streets or buildings in the immediate vicinity of the tavern. _"The city is vast, my love,"_ _he said gently. "A great circle that runs around a spire, rings of people and places all living together and trying to survive. It's possible I once ran down the alleyway behind the market, but if I did, I don't remember it. Not properly, anyway."_

_"But then how do you know where we're going when we go outside?"_

_"Instinct. I know how this city works, how it's built. I remember streets like these, but I don't know if the streets I'm thinking of are _these_ streets or not."_

Even now, some days later, she was still confused by his explanation. To her, a city should be mostly orderly, with recognizable districts and areas defined by certain places or buildings or the groups of people that frequented them. Even the docks at Neverwinter, with its warren of alleys and small dead-end streets had a certain _regularity_ to them, a certain sense of a pattern that she could not find in Sigil.

"Here, beloved." He clasped her hand, steered her towards one of the low, wooden buildings.

Reminded of the long halls in Hilltop that had housed the herbalist and the grain stores, she looked at him quizzically. "I give up. I can't even begin to guess what we're here for."

He laughed. "I wanted to get you something. Come on. I'll show you."

Valen opened the door, and led her into warm gloom that was broken only by the soft marigold of candlelight. She blinked while her eyes adjusted, and found herself staring at hanging lengths of fabric. The light gleamed against arranged bolts of silk, green and red and blue, and she saw heavy lines of damask further back. "Oh," she said. "It's a tailor's, yes?"

"Yes." He glanced down at her, and she saw sudden uncertainty in his eyes. "I wanted to…well, the last gift I gave you was the sword."

The same sword still hung at her hip, and she remembered accepting it, in a cave in the Underdark. "I remember."

"And, well…I wondered if I could buy you something to wear, instead? Something that isn't designed to, well, kill things?"

He was looking at her so seriously, so anxiously, that she almost laughed. Instead, she leaned up and kissed his cheek. "I'd love that. What were you thinking of?"

The line of his shoulders visibly relaxed. "I've never seen you in a dress."

Jaiyan spluttered. "A dress?"

One side of his mouth sloped up. "Ladies do sometimes wear them, yes?"

She glared at him without any real anger. "If you laugh at me, I swear I will kill you."

Valen grinned. "I would never dream of it."

She had not worn a dress since…_gods, when? _She thought, and came up with a vague memory of being bullied into a dress for a midwinter feast at Hilltop. Then there would have been the dress that prickled against her skin when she had lasted all of a few months as a tavern maid. Before that, she recalled wearing smocks and dresses handed down from her sister, with trailing hems that wicked up water and mud during mornings spent in damp fields.

"Alright," she said lightly. "Did my tiefling have any particular colour in mind?"

Sudden panic flared in his eyes. "Ah…whatever you think best. Blue, maybe? Or green? Or…I don't know. Whatever you want."

She smiled and planted another reassuring kiss on his face. "I'll think of something."

They found a seamstress behind a hanging length of soft purple velvet, a slender, wraith-like woman. After banishing Valen to wait by the door, Jaiyan studied the seamstress and privately decided that she could not be fully human. There was an almost reptilian coil to her frame, and her odd, amber-coloured eyes flickered too brightly. Still, she was pleasant enough, and accepted Jaiyan's muttered query about fabric colours without comment.

After the most of an hour had been spent trying to choose, she caved and took the seamstress's advice that pale blue would bring out her eyes best. More time was wasted choosing fabric, and Jaiyan was tempted to just tell the seamstress to decide for her. Eventually, she was taken to a small room and measured, and stood still while a cascade of blue silk was held up against her. Between them, she and the seamstress discovered a nearly-finished blue dress that was perhaps four inches too long in the skirts. As the seamstress worked, her needle flickering along the hem, she wondered if the style would prove too revealing or too modest.

_I know about choosing leathers for riding, or gloves for sparring, or boots for walking leagues in bad weather. This is…unfamiliar territory. _

Even after she tried the dress on, and the silk slid delightfully against her skin, she stared down at herself and wondered if she looked acceptable. _Well, only one way to find out. _

Trying to work out how much of the day she had managed to waste through indecision, she accepted the dress, wrapped and tied, and went in search of Valen. Refusing to give him details, she waited while he paid the seamstress. On the way back to the tavern, his hand closed around hers, and she found herself worrying about what he would think.

They discovered Deekin ensconced at his current favourite table at the tavern, his feet crossed beneath him and a scrawl-covered pile of parchment in front of him. After promising to emerge for dinner, Jaiyan bolted up the stairs, Valen following. In their room, she clutched the wrapped package against her chest and muttered, "You have to turn around."

He grinned. "I promise."

"And no laughing." She kicked her boots off and wriggled out of her leathers. She was very aware of him, waiting by the door, his tail twitching slightly. Perfect gentleman, he stayed motionless while she wrestled the dress on around her shoulders. She fumbled with what seemed like yards of fabric, and then spoiled the laces that wrapped around and underneath the bodice. The hem swamped her feet, and her legs felt strange, brushing bare against each other beneath the skirts.

"Alright." She drew in a steadying breath, and smoothed the sleeves. She felt uncommonly exposed, though she _knew_ the neckline only showed her collarbones and maybe an inch or so of skin beneath. _This is stupid_, she told herself. _He's seen you naked gods know how many times. _"Valen? You can turn around."

He did, and she saw his gaze linger first on her face. Her hands moved unconsciously to the back of her neck, and she wished suddenly she had pulled her hair out of its everyday braid.

"What do you think?"

He shook his head, smiling. "You are beautiful."

He was across the room in four steps, clasping her around the waist, pulling her against him. He trailed his fingers down the slope of her shoulder, feeling the silk give.

"Are you pleased?" she heard herself ask.

"Oh, yes," he murmured. His other hand shifted, brushing across her collarbones. "Gods, you…I should have asked you for this earlier."

"Oh, really?" She wound her arms around his neck, sighed when he dipped his head forward and kissed her throat. "And why might that be?"

His arms tightened around her, and she laughed when he growled and said, "I think you know, you vixen."

"Oh, do I?" Still grinning, she leaned up and kissed him. "Show me."

For a long moment, he gazed at her, his eyes heavy-lidded. Then his fingers found the laces on her bodice, yanked them open. Soft blue fabric slid aside, baring her skin to him. His hands were warm, roaming across her, and teasing. The last ties fell apart, and she giggled as the air brushed across her skin.

"But I only just put it on," she admonished.

He laughed and lowered his mouth to hers for a long, satisfying kiss. "That's alright," he said unevenly. "You can wear it again later."

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Eight days later, Jaiyan stared down at the murky water of a canal while she and Valen waited for their latest commission. Under contract to another trader – a man who occasionally dropped into The Curling Feather – they had signed themselves up as guards and found themselves facing nearly four weeks' work. About to begin the fourth long day in a row, Jaiyan sighed and tried to decide if the gold was really worth the early morning and the growing, cold numbness in her feet as she gazed down at the canal.

On her left side, Valen leaned against the curve of the wall, arms crossed and a deep scowl on his face. She cast a quick glance at him, grinned, and returned her attention to the flat, oily water.

Nearby, four other mercenaries stood and waited silently, hands on weapons and eyes directed away from each other. Two of them, Jaiyan was certain, carried infernal blood of some kind or quantity, while the third was almost shockingly human. The fourth was slender and strange, with a high, sloping forehead, deep black eyes and ridged, greenish skin that reminded her of Sensei Dharvana, the woman who had watched over the Sleeping Man in Cania.

"Where'd the flail come from?"

Jaiyan blinked, saw Valen's head lift as he looked at the mercenary.

"Does it matter?" he asked, his voice flat.

The mercenary shrugged idly. His skin was spectrally pale, and Jaiyan noticed that the bones of the hand wrapped around his sword hilt were strangely long. "Just curious. Got a look about. Look of the Abyss."

"What's this about?"

"Just making conversation." The mercenary grinned. "Wondered if maybe you'd fought there."

"Once, a long time ago," Valen grated. "I'd say half this city has fought there. What's your point?"

"Nothing." Another grin, as blindingly fast. "Nice flail."

Valen frowned, and looked as if he was about to retort. Instead, he turned his head and glared at the water.

"How long did you fight?"

Valen's tail snapped, and Jaiyan saw him draw in a steadying breath. "Too long. When did you?"

"It would have been…oh, forty years or so ago."

His gaze flicked up to the mercenary, sharply studying. "How did you leave?"

The mercenary shrugged again, and Jaiyan saw the buried edge of something cold and hard in his eyes. "The difficult way."

Silence fell, and she quelled the urge to ask what that meant, and why Valen seemed to understand. By the time she heard wheels creaking against the stone, and the trader steered the first wagon around the far corner, she was glad of the distraction. _Better than surly-looking tieflings and mysterious exchanges, especially at this time of the morning, _she thought sourly.

The day passed mostly without upset, as they escorted the overburdened wagon through teeming streets and past looming, dark towers. Some years before, Drogan had occasionally ordered her and Mischa out on wagon escort duty, usually guarding merchant trains on the way out of Hilltop and back down south until the trade roads took them away from the mountains.

_From Hilltop to Sigil,_ she thought. _How things change. _

Still, the technique of walking armed escort seemed not to have changed, despite a leap between planes. One hand on her sword, a vaguely blank look, and no eye-contact with the crowd that spread before them. She was very aware of Valen walking close behind her, and found herself counting his footfalls or listening for the way his armour creaked as he moved.

_Oh, come on. Snap out of it. _She shook herself and fixed her attention on the way the avenue narrowed, funneling beneath a low arch. On both sides, uneven parapets threw thick shadow across the cobbles. The wagon rumbled on, plunging into the gloom beneath the archway. Jaiyan blinked at the sudden transition, and realized that the archway extended on overhead, stretching into a tunnel.

She heard running footsteps, pounding against the stone, and then Valen, calling out an alarm. She spun away from the wagon, drawing her sword in the same motion. She counted at least eight figures, breaking away from the curving stone walls. Pale light gleamed against long knives. Behind her, she heard the others moving, the sound of swords ringing loose.

She dodged the slicing downswing of an edged, ugly-looking knife, and gazed up into a face half-hidden by the fall of a cowl. Inexplicably chilled, she rolled under his next stroke, twisted, and slammed the flat of her sword across his shoulders. He stumbled, and Valen launched in from her left. Devil's Bane whined past her, and she winced as the flail impacted against her opponent's face. Hot blood sprayed, splashed across her chin and throat.

Without stopping to think, Jaiyan pushed on, vaulting past Valen and crashing into her next target. On both sides, she saw the other mercenaries, sweeping into their attackers with cold, clinical efficiency. Valen caught up with her, shielding her left side as she turned to confront another figure. This one moved with a serpentine kind of quickness, all lashing knife blade and recoiling far too fast. Her sword clanged clumsily against his knife, sending vibrations running down her arms. She swore, swiveled the sword, and slammed the pommel against the side of the figure's neck.

He swayed, and Devil's Bane swung in, and removed half of his head.

She turned, about to call out a brief thank-you to Valen, but he pushed her roughly aside. Another knife slashed out of the shadows, biting against his armoured forearm and dropping. Still moving, he pressed on, the flail snapping up and trailing blood. Flanking one of the mercenaries, he whirled, lifting himself almost entirely off the ground, and the flail slammed full-force into his target's chest.

Watching, breathing hard, Jaiyan saw the look of sudden, cold shock in the figure's eyes. Another wrenching motion, and the flail pulled free. She turned, saw the human mercenary driving his sword to the hilt in the last of their attackers. Blood slicked the ground beneath her feet, and the walls of the tunnel seemed abruptly very close.

"All done?" The pale-skinned mercenary straightened up. A long, welling cut crossed his forehead, and his expression was nothing short of disgruntled.

Valen nodded. "All done."

The mercenary glanced up to the merchant, still sitting on the wagon, white-faced and shaking. "Any thoughts?"

"Thieves," came the shaken reply.

"Hopefully." Valen leaned over, used the haft of his flail to tip over the nearest corpse. Beneath the loose cowl, the attacker was human, maybe thirty, and tanned. He checked the next three, found nothing that Jaiyan would have called untoward. Still, she understood his suspicion, and hoped they had run afoul of thieves and nothing more.

Leaving the dead behind, they urged the wagon on, and out into the light. Here, the crowds were thinner, and the streets a little wider. Looping up and down uneven hills, the cobbles were worn smooth, and the wagon skidded more than once. After manhandling the wagon up the last slope, and to the gates of an elegant-looking mansion, the merchant bade them all a thankful farewell, sweetened by handfuls of gold.

Later, after the four mercenaries had accepted their payment and left, Jaiyan leaned against Valen and sighed. "And now we get to walk all the way back to the tavern."

"Yes." He was frowning, his eyes hooded.

"What's wrong?"

He shrugged. "Just…I don't know."

"You think they were just thieves?"

"Probably." He wound an arm around her, pulled her against his shoulder. "You weren't hurt?"

"No." She searched his face, noticed the way his eyes were flickering, fixed on some point behind her. "What are you looking at?"

He shook his head. "Nothing."

"Valen." She twisted in his arms, grabbed the collar of his breastplate. "Talk to me."

"I'm looking at that," he muttered. A defiant jerk of his chin indicated a spiraling tower that speared up behind a row of dark, low buildings. Sitting on the far side of the street, roughly opposite the merchant's manor, the tower seemed to lean at an odd angle.

"What is that?" Jaiyan asked carefully.

"I…don't know," he said. Quiet anger smoked through every word. "I should know, but I don't know."

"Valen, love?" She clasped his hands, tugged him to face her. "Is it something you can't remember?"

"I…yes." He scowled. "I think I've been here before."

"When? Do you know?"

"No," he snapped. Then his face fell. "I'm sorry. I'm not…"

"It's alright," she said softly. He was bristling, the same way he had in the forest after the dragon had left, and she wondered why. "Can you recall anything?"

The creases on his forehead deepened. "No," he said, furiously. "I…no. It's there, but…I _can't_."

"It's alright," she repeated.

"No, it isn't. It could mean…" He shook his head. "I don't know what it could mean." He drew in a deep, raking breath. "Can we…can we leave now?"

"You don't have to ask, you know that." She slipped an arm around his waist, let him lead her back down the hill, away from the tower. He spoke little, kept turning to gaze behind them, and the scowl did not lift from his face. His tail tapped against the back of her legs as they walked, and he barely looked at her.

She wanted to ask him what he was thinking, but there was little point, she knew. If he was struggling with a memory that simply would not surface, then jostling him with questions would not be helpful. _Not when he has that angry, inward look, anyway,_ she thought.

At The Curling Feather, Valen vanished upstairs without a word. Feeling slightly disgruntled, Jaiyan joined Deekin at the corner table. She waited while the innkeeper brought her a tankard, and then muttered, "Do you know any spells for curing memory problems, Deeks?"

Deekin blinked. "Deekin not that good, Boss. What happened?"

She told him, quickly and quietly, and tried not to let her voice sound too worried. "So now he's in a seething bad mood because he thinks he's seen something he used to recognize."

"Not place Goat-man's mother worked at?"

"No. That wasn't a tower, I'm sure." She leaned her chin on linked hands and sighed.

"Boss and Goat-man needing to go past strange tower again?"

"Yes. Tomorrow, in fact. We're picking up that merchant, and escorting him to collect some new cargo."

Deekin tapped his claws against the table. "Boss?"

"Yes, Deeks?"

"Can Boss read over Deekin's new song?"

She smiled, relieved at the distraction. "Course I can." She accepted a handful of parchment, uncurled it. The kobold's sprawling writing trailed across the first page, and she grinned as she read the first stanza. "Well, 'mysterious' only has one 'I' in it."

"Really?" Deekin leaned forward, peered at the inked lines. "What Deekin get wrong?"

"Should be a 'Y' here, instead."

Deekin sighed and turned the page around. The end of his quill trembled as he corrected the offending word. "Deekin not knows what Deekin would do without Boss sometimes."

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Valen paced, too aware of how his hands were clenching into fists, and how an undefined, slowly-building anger simmered somewhere in his chest. He had seen Jaiyan's look of surprise when he had fled upstairs, but he knew that if he had stayed, he would have snapped something he might regret.

_She doesn't understand_, he thought furiously. _She _can't_ understand. _

Until today, he had mostly convinced himself that they were simply in a part of the city he had never before seen. Sigil was vast and swarming and besides, it had been so many years since he had walked the cobbles here. _So much might have changed. _

But then he had seen that tower, ungainly and dark and ugly, and something had surfaced in his mind.

_Something he could not remember. _

He growled, spun on his heel and considered kicking the wall. _Did you really think it was going to be easy? Come to Sigil, try to be a guide who can't remember anything, and hope all is well?_

_Calm down. _He uncurled his fingers and paced the length of the room again. _For all you know, it could be that you earned yourself a flogging in front of that tower for stealing. _

He heaved down a deep breath and tried to will his thoughts unruffled and still. The uncomfortable sensation lingered, that he should know things, and did not, and did not know how to go about remembering them.

_The last time that happened, you were in Lith My'athar,_ he recalled. _The Seer sat with you, and helped you remember what you could, and spoke with you. _

Those had been terrible days, when bursts of memory would come like jolts of pain, and he began to remember the Blood Wars, and what he had done there. Some things were indelible, etched in his mind and sharp. _Grimash't, Kyreia, his mother and her death, running in the alleyways of Sigil, being stolen to serve as a battle slave. _

But the details escaped him still, the little, gnawing details in between. _Details, along with the gods knew how many years lost to the violence. _ He could remember places, places he and the others had been summoned to, and battles they had won or lost. Names and times eluded him, though, and he wondered if he recalled anything in the right order.

_That doesn't matter. Not anymore. The Seer helped. _He whirled again, and his tail snapped erratically. _You're just back in Sigil, and all is well, and you have Jaiyan. _

He exhaled slowly, and wondered if she would laugh at him for being ridiculous again.

_Yes, she would_, he thought. _But not mockingly, and then she would listen, if you wanted to talk. _

Valen scrubbed a hand across his forehead and tried to stop thinking. _Moping in here is not going to help anything. _Still irritated with himself, he strode across the floor and kicked the door open. He had let himself be bullied into promising to hear Deekin's latest effort some time today, he recalled, so he decided he might as well get it over with.

Downstairs, he found the fire crackling, and Jaiyan laughing with Deekin as the little kobold added final changes to his closing verses. Jaiyan nudged a tankard across him as he sat beside her, and he noticed her concerned glance. He slid an arm around her waist, pulling her against him. Leaning in, he brushed a kiss across her temple. "Forgive me?"

She grinned and curled herself against him. "Anything, my temperamental tiefling."

"Goat-man ready to listen to Deekin's new song?"

Valen groaned. "Fire away. Apparently I'm not going anywhere."


	11. Chapter 11

_**Chapter Eleven – Old Enemies**_

Nathyrra crossed the marketplace, heading for the temple and still seething from her morning session with her councilors. Mostly soldiers, with a smattering of clerics and a trader or two, they were a mix of male and female, very much in keeping with the kind of advisors the Seer had preferred. _I would bet any coin or jewels they wouldn't argue so much for the Seer, though,_ she thought furiously. _Hours of snarling about where best to hand out the rations in the city, and what did I get? Soldiers who want it all, clerics who think everyone else should have it, and a couple of wizards who think fighters are useless. _

In the end, she had told them she would think on the issue, and swept out, unable to bear the pressing closeness of the council chamber any longer. The foodstores were low but not critical, and while they had yet to trade with any outposts outside the city walls, there were rothe pens aplenty, and her soldiers were used to living off rations. _But that was back when we were at war,_ the insidious thought reminded. _Back when there seemed to be no reprieve. Now you _have_ that reprieve, have that time to grow and survive and succeed, and your soldiers are still hungry. _

Nathyrra clenched her fists, decided that she completely hated practical politics, and stalked into the temple's cool, shadowy interior. She marched past the statues, up the stairs and into her chambers.

There, sitting curled at the window, a book on his lap, was Andaryn. She exhaled slowly, and remembered that she had ordered him not leave the temple. Her councilors had begun demanding to know who the stranger was, why he had not yet emerged, and was he even, in fact, still breathing? She had silenced them with half-truths about how terribly emaciated he had been, and how he needed to eat and regain what little strength he had before facing an interrogation. There had been murmurs of discontent, but the word of a Matron Mother was still to be grudgingly obeyed, even in a city of rebels.

Andaryn's head lifted, and the corners of his mouth twitched. "How went the council, Matron Mother?"

Nathyrra snarled wordlessly, kicked the door closed behind her, and wondered why in the hells he had not stayed in the chambers she had set out for him. _Because you told him not to, _her mind whispered. _Because you're afraid someone will knife him before you find out why he ran to Lith My'athar and not somewhere else. _

"Enjoying my books?" she asked icily.

He arched an eyebrow. "This one is tedious. I already know the lady drow is going to betray the second of her three lovers. Why the second lover in question does not simply slice her throat open now he _knows_ about her plans quite frankly escapes me."

She sat opposite him, and almost could not dredge up the strength to be properly angry. His frame had filled out a little, she noted, after some days of steady food, and the wild, hunted look in his eyes had faded somewhat. He was still whipcord lean, though, and the urbane lilt to his voice did nothing to hide his coiled poise.

"You never answered about the council."

"No. I didn't." She dug her fingers into her hair and sighed. "Should I?"

"I don't know." He snapped the book closed. He leaned back against the windowsill, peering down onto the market square below. "Where are your slaves?"

"There are no slaves here."

"None?" His eyebrows rose. "Then who does your hard labour, Matron Mother? You?"

She snorted. "I have servants and soldiers. Stop trying to bait me."

"Bait you, mistress? Whyever would I do that?" Something gleamed in his eyes, part challenge and part amusement. "So…no slaves, no statues to the Spider Queen, no priestesses chanting endlessly. No screams of males being flogged, either. Exactly what kind of drow city have I found myself in, may I ask?"

"A different kind."

"Obviously." He straightened up, threw her a half-grin. "So does this mean the rumours were true?"

Something prickled in her stomach, something wary. "Rumours?"

"Of a city of rebels who dared throw off the chains of Lolth and oppose the Valsharess herself. _Those_ rumours."

"And if it was true?"

He shrugged idly. "Then I suppose that would explain why I'm still breathing."

"Perhaps," she said, coldly. "Perhaps I have further plans for you."

"Plans, or uses?" He sighed. "May I ask, Matron Mother, when I may be given my weapons?"

She bristled at that, and snapped out before she could think better of it. "My name is Nathyrra."

Andaryn blinked slowly. "Then, Nathyrra, may I ask when my weapons will be returned to me?"

"Soon. Later." She drew in a steadying breath, and tried to quell her thundering pulse. _Damn him, he'd gotten under her skin again, and so damn quickly. _ "Not now," she qualified. "There is…too much unrest at present. Do you think I could let you, a stranger, loose in my city, armed?"

"Better to have me armed, than have me savaged by your soldiers, surely?" He smirked. "But I suppose you would wish some kind of trade?"

She leaned forward. "Trade? Very well. Answer me a question or two, and I may let you have your sword."

"Just my sword?" He gave another heaving sigh, and she saw the suspect gleam in his eyes. "As you wish it, mistress. What will you ask?"

And what could she ask, she wondered? _Where he came from? Who he was travelling with? What he saw in the darkness? _Without thinking, she said, "You mentioned the Valsharess. What do you know of her?"

"Ah." He laid the book on the nearest table. "The Valsharess. I had the dubious honour of meeting her once or twice. That was when I ran as a scout for her troops."

"And that was when?"

"A long time ago. Before I was ordered to join a scout troop working out of an outpost nearly twenty days from here."

"What happened?" she asked.

"Ah, mistress. That is more than one or two questions." Andaryn grinned, but she saw the bleak edge beneath. "We were sent on short rations, with poor weapons and little help, and told to keep the darkness at bay."

Watching him, she understood; the unchanging seasons of the Underdark, and the creatures that swarmed within them, drawn to even the softest lights in the blackness. She remembered fending off beholders as they rose up out of the shadows, and seethed into small camps. "I knew the Valsharess," she heard herself say.

He arched an eyebrow, and said nothing.

"I was a Red Sister," she said quietly. "An assassin for her."

"And yet you are here now," he murmured. "And this place is very far from the fortress she once called home, yes?"

"Yes," she echoed. She blinked, and shook herself. "You must forgive me…I did not mean to bore you with such things."

"No," Andaryn said, softly. "I think perhaps, if you would care to, I might like to hear whatever tale lies behind that, mistress."

"Would you, indeed?" She mustered a smile, full of teeth. "A negotiation then, brazen male? Information for a tale?"

He laughed then, the sound unhindered. "A negotiation indeed, mistress. I look forward to it."

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The flickering sky seemed to _slide_ overhead today, and no matter which way Jaiyan stared at it, it seemed no more normal. She considered muttering something about how much she hated it, but decided that such a statement might offend Valen. She gave the sky another squinting glance, and dragged her eyes back to the tiefling. They had spent the day with their merchant contract, and escort duty had proved mind-numbingly dull. _Still, given that the only other option is mayhem and violence, why is this a bad thing?_ Still, the journey from the merchant's mansion to his pick-up point and back had been uninterrupted, and for once, Jaiyan was glad.

But now they stood outside the merchant's gates, and she could see how Valen's gaze was pinned again on the spiraling tower. She began to wonder if the crease between his eyebrows would be deep enough to balance a coin between when he snarled and spun away. "Valen?"

"It's…I _don't know_ what it is." He shrugged helplessly. "I keep trying to remember. I _know_ I know what it is. But I…can't remember."

"I know." She reached out, slid her gloved hand through his. "Is it…" She bit her lip, knew she had to ask, and ploughed on, "Is it Grimash't's tower?"

"No." Valen raked loose hair out of his face. "Not his fortress. Not where he kept me. But something…"

She gazed up at the blank, dark windows, and shivered. There was something horribly _empty_ about it, and the walls curving up on both sides.

Valen's fingers slipped away from hers, and she turned in time to see him striding across the cobbles. His tail snapped behind him, and she recognized the set, rigid line of his shoulders. She had seen that pose in the dracolich's lair, and in Lith My'athar, and Cania, when he had realized what it meant, that he had been called back to life only to journey through a frozen hell.

"Valen?" She hurried after him, followed him as he wove between three low shacks and past a rambling building that might have been a tavern. She caught up with him when he paused and stared up at the tower again, rearing up behind a high wall. "Valen, love, what are you doing?"

He turned to her, breathing hard and with his eyes darting. "I have to see it."

"No, wait…"

But he was moving again, with wide, loping steps. She swore under her breath and took off after him. She reached him as he found a ragged gap in the wall. "Valen, wait. I'm not sure this is a good idea."

He snarled, low in his throat. His hand shook around the haft of his flail. "Don't you understand?" he snapped. "I _have_ to know!"

"Alright," she said carefully. "But we go in there together."

Jaiyan trailed him through the narrow breach in the wall, and realized that her hands felt clammy. Peering past Valen's shoulder, she saw rough-cut steps leading up to an open, dark doorway. The stone was pitted and worn, and what little remained of the doors looked damp and rotten.

Valen was up the stairs in two strides, heaving the doors aside in another. His flail swung loose, and then he was stalking into the darkness beyond. Jaiyan swore again and bolted after him, stumbling up the last step. The smell hit her first, all mould and wet and the mustiness of old stone hardly touched by daylight. Beneath her feet, wood splinters crunched. The air pressed in, and she could make out little beyond a high, arched ceiling, and stairs across the room. She heard her own breathing, rapid and uneven in her ears.

"They brought me here."

She squinted at Valen, could only watch as his hand lowered, and the flail tipped. "What do you mean?"

"_This_ is why I remember this place." His head tipped back, and she saw stripped grief on his face. "When Grimash't took me, he brought me here." His voice was low and thick. "I was here for only a few days. Two or three…I don't really recall."

Jaiyan clasped his hand, felt him trembling.

"Then he took me and another dozen or so slaves to his fortress. I always…There was another tiefling. A boy about my age. He tried to escape." His blue eyes flickered, too bright, and tracked the distance between the stairs and the doorway. "The guards caught him ten paces from that door, and flogged him so hard his skin came away from his body. Then they threw him out."

"Why did they bring you here first?" she asked quietly.

"It was a staging point, I suppose. A place to throw us all into before deciding what to do with us." Valen drew down a steadying breath. His gaze shifted from the darkness and fixed on her. "Do you know…the moment I stepped in here, I remembered it? I could feel it…in the walls. In the air. Is that…very strange?"

She smiled gently. "Of course it's very strange, my love. But I do believe you, and I think I know how terrible it must feel."

His eyes stayed on her face, and he said, haltingly, "Have you never…forgotten something and then done something that reminded you?"

"Yes. But with me, it usually involves two bottles of wine and waking up to discover that I've slept in the horse trough." She leaned up, kissed him softly. "It's alright. I believe you. I always have. But right now you have to let go of my hand."

"Why?"

"Because you're squeezing it so hard I can't feel my fingers."

He blinked, and dragged his hand away. "Oh…I'm sorry. I didn't realize…"

"Ssh. It's alright." She reached up, traced the severe line of his cheekbones, then down to his mouth. "Do you remember anything else?"

"No. Just those two or three days, sitting here. They didn't feed us." His hand lifted again, his fingers curling against the dead, damp air. "They put shackles on me. Heavy iron shackles that were too big for me. I remember…I remember that they sliced into my wrists. One of the guards told me to stop whining."

The rough, uneven rhythm of his voice cut into her. _What did you do when you were young? Steal your father's whiskey and get a thrashing for it? Wake up and whine about the cold coming in through the crack in the window? _

She looked up into his face and tried to picture him, young and small and almost broken. _No, he's Valen and he's tall and big and he's got broad shoulders and no one could _make_ him do anything if he didn't want to. _

"Gods, Valen," she muttered. "I just…I'm sorry. That's all."

"Don't be sorry. It was long ago." He mustered a strange, pale sort of a smile. He trailed a hand down the side of her face, cupped her chin. "I'm sorry I insisted on coming here."

"Don't be. Is knowing better than not knowing?"

"Yes," he answered hesitantly. "If only by a little."

"Good." She breathed in deeply, and wrinkled her nose. "Now, all I can taste is mildew, so I think we should get out of here."

He laughed. "Anything my lady commands." He slipped an arm around her waist, turned to steer her towards the doorway, and froze.

"Valen?" She twisted to look at him, saw that he was rigid, his head tilted as he listened. "Valen, what is it?"

"Be quiet," he hissed. "I can hear something."

_Damned tieflings and their strange pointed ears,_ Jaiyan thought grumpily. She waited out an impatient few moments before whispering, "What?"

"Movement." Valen stared at the stairs, and his tail snapped. "Floorboards creaking."

"Could be the wind."

"No. It's too regular."

She strained to hear, and could make out little beyond the thump of her own heartbeat, and Valen's armour shifting as he moved. "Then let's get out of here anyway, yes?"

"Yes. Quietly." He guided her quickly across the floor, and she found herself blinking as they emerged into the pale light outside. He chivvied her on through the gap in the wall, and did not slow his rapid, jolting pace until the curve of the hill rose between them and the tower.

"See anything?" Jaiyan hopped beside him, but could see nothing over the undulating roofs or between the leaning walls of the buildings in front of the tower.

"No." He sounded vaguely disgruntled. "Nothing."

"I'm making a vote for the wind, then."

"Perhaps."

"You don't sound very convinced." She prodded his side. "Could have been beggars, thieves, anyone who might prefer a roof over their heads."

"Yes." His voice was still distant, and the glare he turned on the tower could have melted metal. "You're probably right."

"Probably?" She arched an eyebrow at him and poked him again. "I'm _always_ right. Don't you know that by now?"

That raised a slight smile, but the frown did not lift until the tower had fallen far behind. He kept twisting to glance behind them as the sky darkened, and his grip on Devil's Bane did not slacken. The streets were less crowded at this time of day, as Jaiyan had learned, and he shepherded her across a square and past a row of empty merchant stalls with a brusqueness that startled her. She was almost jogging to keep up, and he seemed to neither notice nor care.

The street dipped past a twisting, low tower, and funneled on through high, blank stone walls. Far above, knife-edge parapets stood notched against the sky. Valen stopped, head tilted back, and she slammed into his armoured shoulder. Wincing, she rubbed at her chin and was about to demand to know what the hells he was playing at.

"Move!" He shoved her roughly to the ground, and she heard the whine as Devil's Bane sliced through the air.

She rolled up to a crouch, and flinched when a crossbow bolt winged off the stone a foot above her head. She squinted past Valen, saw dark shapes against the sky, leaning over on the left side of one of the parapets. She heard shouting, and the ratcheting sound of someone winding a crossbow taut. She threw herself to one side as another bolt slashed down, and quickly counted five figures above them.

_Between us we have a flail, a sword, and a pair of daggers. _She gritted her teeth and tried not to quail when another bolt nicked past Valen's head. _What the hells do we do, run and hope they miss? Stay and get skewered?_

Another bolt bit a chunk out of the stone by her heel. She lurched forward, almost bumped into Valen. "What do we do?"

"Run," he snarled. "Stay right behind me."

He grasped her wrist, and pulled her along with him while crossbow bolts thumped down onto the stone behind them. One whirred past her cheekbone, making her gasp, and another ripped past Valen's arm. A third sank into the ground just ahead of her, and she leaped over it, praying another low-shot bolt was not about to pin her between the shoulders.

She risked a look past Valen, saw one of the dark shapes detach from the wall and eel its way down the stone. Moving with a curious, boneless kind of grace, the figure writhed halfway down the wall and hurled itself into mid-air. Jaiyan stared, not sure whether to be afraid or impressed. Reminded suddenly of the way drow moved, with that same lithe, rippling elegance, she watched open-mouthed as the figure straightened up.

The figure lifted a hand, and the four accomplices near the parapet stopped. A crossbow clicked into place somewhere high above, and Jaiyan wondered how many bolts were fixed on them.

Hooded and caped, the figure approached. Jaiyan studied him quickly, toes to cowled head. She could see amber eyes, glowing fiercely amid the sharp angles of a pale face. The cape did not quite hide the stranger's lean, muscled shape, nor the serpentine way he moved.

"You were at the tower," he said, softly.

Valen growled. "And?"

"Did you come looking for the past?"

"What?" Valen's fingers tightened around Devil's Bane. "What are you talking about?"

"You do not remember." The stranger tipped his head to one side. "And yet you went there?"

"What do you know about the tower?"

"A place, for slaves, and for their masters to take them away." He shrugged. "The question is not what I know, but why you were there again. So many years later…how many, exactly? Do you remember? Or have the Blood Wars robbed you of that, as well?"

Valen's face drained of all colour. "I don't know you," he grated. "I have never before seen you."

"No, not like this, you haven't." The stranger took a step forward. "I know you, though. You were just another slave, like them all, but you survived. Grimash't chased you, and the stories tell us that you killed him. Is it true?"

Valen's tail lashed. "Yes," he spat. "I killed him and watched him bleed his life out on another plane. He should never have come after me."

"Oh, I don't know. You fought well for him. Well, and fast, and with little mercy. Would a warrior cast aside a favoured sword? Of course not."

Devil's Bane swung around, and Jaiyan saw that familiar tension in Valen's frame. She slid her sword half from its scabbard, and prayed he had some kind of plan.

"And yet you are here now," the stranger said thoughtfully. "Back here in Sigil, and carrying a weapon that screams its history. Did you not think? Or were you hoping to be found?"

Valen growled, low and guttural. In one smooth motion, Devil's Bane whipped up, and he launched forward. He crashed into the stranger, dragged him down onto the ground. An elbow to the throat made the stranger writhe. His hands snapped up, pushing at Valen's chest, but the flail came down too fast, and blood flew.

Beside the parapet, the stranger's companions shrank back. Valen straightened up, his flail thick with blood. He was breathing hard, and the look he turned on them was statue-cold. Without speaking, he clasped Jaiyan's hand, and led her down the street, and out under an archway to where the walls finally broke apart and the spread of the cobbles widened.

She realized she was trembling when the street plunged down another steep hill, and she stumbled. Valen's arm looped around her waist, hauling her upright against him. "It's alright," he murmured into her ear. "Take a moment."

She shivered through a deep breath, and wondered why she felt so horribly shaken. She had seen him go up against countless opponents, usually as fast and with the same results. _Why then are you shaking like some novice who's just seen her first skirmish? _"I'm fine," she said, but her voice came out hollow even to herself. "Valen? Can I ask you something?"

Blood still dripped from the flail heads. "What?"

"You didn't know him?"

"No," he said, flatly. "At least, I didn't remember him. I don't know…I'm sorry. I don't know what it means."

"It's alright." She sucked down another quick breath, and tried to will the rest of her apprehension to drain away. "I just…didn't like the way he looked at you." _Like you were a wolf caught in a trap, all its strength and fight and anger taken away. Like he'd found something he was looking for. _

"Jaiyan?"

She heard the low note of concern in his voice, and dredged up a smile. "Come on," she said lightly. "Deekin's expecting us for dinner."

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Back at The Curling Feather, with her hands wrapped around a cup of mulled wine, Jaiyan could still not quite shake the uncertainty that had settled in her stomach. She had barely touched dinner, and even Deekin's reprimand had not inspired enough guilt to make her eat._ You're in a tavern, _she thought, _you're warm, you're with Valen and Deekin, and you're safe. Tomorrow's part of the commission means meeting the merchant in some market, so you won't even have to go past the tower again. _

But the disturbing thought still lingered, that Valen's past was not quite as forgotten and buried as he had thought. _Sure, it's tragic and exciting when it's stories about the Blood Wars and finally killing Grimash't. A little different when that past jumps down a wall and ambushes you. _

"Boss?"

Deekin's cold nose touched the side of her hand, and she jumped. "Oh, gods, Deeks. Sorry. What were you saying?"

The little kobold regarded her carefully. "Boss still wondering about strange man?"

"If he even was a man."

"He wasn't," Valen said. "Or if he was, then I am."

"You most certainly are," she told him archly. "I've seen enough of you enough times to know _that_."

A faint blush crept along his cheekbones. "I meant his heritage is most likely infernal."

She grinned. "I knew what you meant. I just like seeing you squirm."

He snorted. "I had noticed."

"But I always did think of you as a man first and a tiefling second," she added.

"That only because Boss not know what tiefling meant back then."

"Thanks, Deeks. Always on hand to point out my ignorance."

"Deekin tries, Boss."

She tried to stifle a giggle and failed. Hooking up the wine cup, she drained it to the dregs and felt some of her tension seep away. "Do I have time for another one of these?"

"No," Valen said. "We've got another early start."

"But they're so nice and warm," she protested.

"You've already had four," he reminded her wryly. "Now are you going to come upstairs with me nicely, or will I have to carry you?"

"How scandalous." She accepted the hand he held out to her, bade Deekin a quick goodnight, and let him lead her across the taproom. By the time they were halfway up the stairs, she had her arms around his waist, her head burrowed against his shoulder and was wishing he had taken his armour off earlier.

Valen pried her off him to unlock the door. She waited while he fumbled with the key, and amused herself by grabbing the end of his tail.

"Do you have any idea how distracting that is?" The door swung inward, and Valen gathered her into his arms. "Of course you do, wicked woman." He staggered backwards into the room, while she laughed again and nuzzled the side of his neck.

The door closed, and Valen went still.

Barely noticing, Jaiyan switched her attention to the nearest buckles on his armour.

"Stop." Valen caught her wrists.

She looked up, saw that his eyes were narrow in the gloom. She eased away from him, tried to see if there was anything amiss. She could see little past the lines of the bed and the curtains, or the pile of clothes she had left on the floor. "Valen, I don't…"

But then she breathed in, and the air sliding across her tongue seemed strange and thick and coppery. She saw a sudden look of open, stark fear cross Valen's face, and his hands clutched at hers. Her head felt heavy and packed with wool. She tried to say something, anything, but her mouth was stiff and dry, and then the floorboards seemed to be tilting up to meet her, and her vision upended and went dark.


	12. Chapter 12

_The usual applies - most of the characters and locations do not belong to me, but a handful do, and reviews are always welcome._

_**Chapter Twelve – Gone**_

Deekin paced across the rug for the fourth time. His wings were stiff with the tension of waiting, and he could not quite shake the idea that something was _wrong_. Something indefinable, annoying, and prickling at the base of his spine. He knew well enough that Boss and Goat-man tended to lock themselves away in order to practice the things humans did to each other when they liked each other. By now, it seemed to Deekin that they had probably practiced enough and were bound to be quite good at it, but they seemed to enjoy it in any case, and who was he to comment too much on the strange behaviour of humans? Or human-shaped creatures, anyway.

But this morning, something felt _off_. Even Boss and Goat-man did not cloister themselves away so long that Deekin got bored. And anyway, Goat-man was so serious and precise about leaving on time for whatever escort duty they had agreed to that he always had Boss up and complaining and out the door. And there had been all that talk of the tower yesterday, and the ambush on their way back to the tavern. The stranger who had known something about Goat-man and that huge flail he carried. _What could it all mean? _

His tail snapped as he deliberated a moment longer, and then he was away, charging up the stairs and onto the second landing. He knocked carefully at their door, and was almost hoping to hear something embarrassing.

"Boss?" He knocked again, heard nothing. Apprehension jolted down his spine, and he had to hold himself steady long enough to sing the lock open. He pushed at the door, and stared at bare walls, rumpled sheets, and no sign of Boss, Goat-man, or their belongings.

_Who could just up and steal a tiefling, a woman, and all that ridiculously heavy green armour? Along with the flail and Boss's sword and dagger and clothes and everything?_

He paused in the centre of the floor, drew in a long, deep breath. He could taste leather and weapon oil, and the herbs Boss would have used to wash her hair in, and the strange, forge-fire-scent that he had learned was the smell that clung to Goat-man. He smelled not unlike some of the tieflings they had seen in the city streets, so Deekin supposed it was a quirk of the species, since he had never come across a human or an elf or a drow who smelled like that.

Elves tended to smell of forests, he reflected, or of high mountains and clear air. Drow were different, all dry granite and old dust and new leather. Humans smelled of whatever was stuck to their clothes, he had once decided, though Boss generally smelled of sword oil, half-dried blood, and Goat-man.

Deekin shook himself free of his thoughts and stalked back downstairs, every nerve end tingling. This felt like that time they had ventured into the stinger nest in the desert, and he and Boss had spent the better part of a whole day slinking along tunnels just _waiting _for an attack that never seemed to come. 

In the taproom, he hopped up on the bar and accosted the innkeeper. "Innkeeper! You seen Boss and Goat-man?"

The tiefling innkeeper shrugged uncomfortably. "Those two you came in with? The tiefling and the girl?"

"Yep. Seen them this morning?"

Another quick shrug. "No. Should I have?"

"Maybe." Deekin glared at the tiefling. "Seen them leave?"

"No…"

"Not in their room." The kobold rustled his wings. "_Sure_ not seen them?"

"Look, what my patrons do is up to them." The tiefling folded his arms. "You their keeper or something?"

"Nope. Deekin their friend." He sighed. "You let Deekin know if you notice anything, yes? Anything about human woman or tiefling?"

"Alright." The innkeeper leaned on the bar and nodded. "She's young, yes, and he's a tall one?"

"Yep. Boss have long brown hair and blue eyes. Boss also be really short. Goat-man be very tall and very white and gots red hair and horns and a tail." He looked at the innkeeper and brightened. "Bit like you but different." 

"Not so out of the ordinary around here," the innkeeper said wryly.

"What part demon you be?"

"About a quarter."

"No…Deekin means…what type demon?"

"Oh." The innkeeper leaned on the bar. "I don't know. No one ever stuck around long enough to tell me."

"Oh. Goat-man be half cambion."

"Cambion?"

"Yep. Cambion."

"Hmm." The tiefling leaned on his elbows. "He's from here?"

"Yep. Deekin not knows when Goat-man left Sigil. Mainly because Goat-man not know either. But Goat-man definitely born here."

The tiefling blinked slowly. "Your friend, is he carrying around any old debts?"

"Umm…Deekin not think Goat-man owe people money. Goat-man too honourable."

"No, not money. I mean…unfinished business."

Deekin shook his head. Goat-man had killed his demon master after escaping Sigil, all those years ago. But as Boss was fond of saying, things were never simple, and who knew what Goat-man could no longer remember because of his time in the Blood Wars. "Not sure."

The tiefling shrugged. "I'll let you know if I hear anything."

Deekin nodded slowly. He prised himself away from the bar and curled up around his lute in the corner. He plucked a few notes, but even the silvery noise of the strings could not quite distract him from the lump of apprehension that had firmly lodged in his chest. He sighed again, laid the lute to one side, and stared into the fireplace, trying not to think about where Goat-man and Boss might be.

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Nathyrra stared at the locked cabinet and contemplated again the sanity of her just-made decision. _Are you really going to do this? Give a stranger a weapon and hope you don't wake up with your throat cut? _Still, Andaryn had done nothing but obey her so far; he stayed in his chambers, or hers, and he spoke when she asked. _Still, trust a drow to wait for the perfect moment. _

Nathyrra snarled and jammed the key into the lock. _Do you trust him or do you just _want_ to trust him? The way the Seer trusted you when you arrived at her gates, a Red Sister? _

Knowing she would buckle if she hovered a moment longer, Nathyrra wrenched the cabinet open and fished out Andaryn's sword. She left the three long-bladed daggers, and the shortbow and the quiver. _A sword is harder to conceal for a surprise attack_, she thought grimly. She did not doubt her own abilities, but living without constant threat of violence from her own people had become something she approved of. _Of course, your mother would die of shock if she ever heard such a sentiment. _

She gazed down the narrow hilt in her hand. Elegant scrollwork descended down the blade, and she pulled it free of the black scabbard. Beautiful and looping, and giving no clue as to the origin of the sword or its owner. The hilt was wrapped with black leather, and no jewels were sunk into the pommel or the scabbard. _It's just a working sword. A sword for using in the darkness, where reflection off a single vain jewel means death. _

She locked the cabinet again and tried to quell her unease. The quick trip down the corridor to his chambers did nothing to calm her, and she almost spun on her heel. Instead, she unlocked the door and swept in without bothering to knock.

He was sitting at the window, his knees drawn up and his arms around his shins, staring down on the marketplace below. "Matron Mother."

She waited until the door closed behind her. "You let me ask one or two questions, and I remember promising you your sword."

Andaryn turned, and she saw his eyes widen a fraction. "My sword..?"

She crossed the floor, held the weapon out to him. "Go on. It's yours."

He curled his fingers around the scabbard, and paused. "Are you certain?"

"Yes." She let go, and stepped away from him. "Do not make me regret this."

He turned the blade over in his hands. "Why not? You could have all sorts of fun inventing some suitably horrific punishment for me."

Nathyrra snorted. "A dagger to the ribs is just as permanent, and a lot less bothersome."

"Indeed." He laid the sword on the windowsill beside him. "And you wish to trade some more?"

"Yes."

"Then what first, mistress?"

She perched at the opposite end of the windowsill, searched his face. "Tell me about your last mission."

His lips thinned. "I told you. A group of foolhardy young drow, sent into the darkness."

"Don't play games. Who sent you?"

"The Valsharess, mistress. Who else?"

She stared at his hands, the way his fingers flexed taut around his shins. "How many of you?"

"Forty. And yes, I was the only one left breathing, and no, I did not kill any of the others." He leaned his head on his knees. "Three of them died from their own foolishness, not long after we left her fortress. A rockslide, a fall, and blundering into a beholder nest."

"Were you in charge?"

Andaryn's fingers slipped down, played across the hilt of his sword. "No. That dubious tribute was left to the most honoured female of our group. Saerith."

"Saerith?" Nathyrra shot upright. "Saerith who grew up in Skullport?"

"Unless there are two such females with that name and birthplace, then, yes. You knew her?"

"Very briefly. She was training to join the Red Sisters when I left." She had been a brash, skilled young female, Nathyrra remembered. Equally deadly with a sword or daggers, and with a breath-stopping kind of sensuality barely hidden beneath her assassin's leathers. "Where were you going?"

"Ah, the awkward questions. Saerith knew. All we lowly scouts and soldiers knew for a time was that we were on some mission of great importance. Something to do with finding something that could help the Valsharess."

"But you didn't."

"Of course not." His teeth flashed in a bitter smile. "I recall a certain amount of negotiation, mistress."

She sighed. "What is it you wish to know?"

"Why did you become a Red Sister?"

"Because I was chosen." Sharp and brutal with clarity, she remembered that day. She had stood, _so proud_, in the Valsharess' throne room, while she was proclaimed worthy and skilled enough to be trained. "Years ago, the Valsharess came to Menzoberranzan. She picked me, along with some others, and brought us back to her fortress. I had trained as an assassin, and she saw fit to have me become a Red Sister."

Andaryn's eyes glittered. "An unquestionable honour."

"I thought so at the time." She recalled how her new red and black leathers had smelled, how easily they slipped on. How natural it had felt, to wear them and see other drow bow their heads in deference to her position. How simple it had once been, to take orders and kill, and do the same again and again.

"Why did you leave?"

"Ah, the awkward questions." She shot him a challenging look. "The answer is neither short nor happy."

He inclined his head. "I would like to know, mistress."

"Would you?" The words came out uneven. "Why? So _you_ do not have to talk? Do not have to explain why exactly I should keep you alive?"

"No," he said, curiously flat. "I simply find myself wishing to know. Mistress."

"Wishing to _know?_" She pushed away from the windowsill. Her hand slid instinctively to the hilt of her nearest dagger. "You are _my_ prisoner, male. You wish to trade for information? I have agreed. I have _not_ agreed to entertain you with tales of my life simply because you _wish to know_."

"We were sent to the far north of the Valsharess' fortress," he said, his voice entirely without inflection. "We were sent with a handful of maps, and enough food for seventy days. Thirty days later, half of us were dead, and Saerith found herself having to explain to her lowly followers how it was that they had been taken by things we could not see in the darkness."

Halfway to the door, Nathyrra paused. "She knew?"

"Yes. Do you know what it is like, honoured mistress, to see your comrades falling around you? To see blood on the stones and not know why?" Something smoked through his voice, part rage and part terror. "Do you know what it is like to see your comrades slain and their throats gape open and their swords fall? To see them scream and their flesh tear open and _not see what is attacking them?_"

Nathyrra's skin crawled, and she linked her hands together. She knew the blackness of the Underdark very well, and thought she knew all its horrors. "No," she said quietly. "I do not know what that is like." She turned, and approached the windowsill again. "Will you tell me?"

His smile surfaced again, biting and too bright. "Is that an order, mistress?"

"Perhaps. And if it was?"

His fingers relaxed from their death-grip around his shins. "Then I will be pleased to obey, mistress."

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Deekin perched on the courtyard wall and peered up at the tavern windows. He had spent the day in a froth of impatience, and had not even been able to pen a few extra lines of his new song. Boss had once told him he wrote too quickly, without thinking sometimes, and he found himself not really wanting to plough on with the ballad without her there to check things over for him.

He remembered edging nervously out of the trees, and approaching her, amid the snow and the cold. He had seen few humans up close, and even fewer who were not running away from his kobold companions. This one had been female, he recognized, and small, and very young-looking, even in the self-consciously cocky way she held her sword and herself.

But, for all that she was armed and alert, he had not really thought she was dangerous. _In danger, perhaps, like him, but not threatening. _

And that chance meeting had led to Undrentide, and Deekin's decision that he had never met a better friend. Well, she drank far too much, and had a bad temper, and tended to get Deekin into far too many fights. But she was always _there_, and Deekin had never known anyone like that before. At least, not someone who never wanted anything back except company and someone to listen. There had been that awful time after Undrentide, after those days spent in Waterdeep, when Boss had wanted to travel, and Deekin had wanted to stay, so they split up. A stupid decision at the time, he knew, but he _really_ wanted to stay and write, and she _really_ wanted to travel some more.

He remembered that evening when she had come back to The Yawning Portal, and he had felt that indescribable sense of _belonging_. So he had followed her into the Underdark, and to Lith My'athar, and he could have sworn he knew what was going on between her and Goat-man ages before they did. He had never seen her look at a man quite like the way she looked at Goat-man; all apprehension and hope and something that seemed slightly hungry.

Not that she ever asked, and nor would he have said so, but he had decided that he approved. Goat-man was at least as bad-tempered as Boss, if not more so, and he was tall enough to be useful. Of course, there had been that terrible business in Cania, but he knew it had been Goat-man's blood, and not Goat-man, who had hurt her. Still, he still hated the dreams that occasionally woke him, of Boss's throat all torn and bleeding, and Goat-man striding out into the cold.

Deekin sighed and looked up at the windows again. He could see the panes belonging to Boss and Goat-man's room. _The room had been locked from the inside. Magic? Nope. No trace of magic left on the air. So……maybe really clever wizard then. Or maybe room just got locked from _outside_ afterwards to be tricky. _

Deekin exhaled sharply. _Where were they? What had happened to them?_ He stared at the blank windows above and tried to remember what Goat-man had said about his mother, and the demonness she worked for. _A brothel, _he had said, _a brothel where his mother worked, years ago. Would the demonness even care about a grown-up tiefling who she threw out onto the street so long ago? Probably not. _

Deekin snapped his claws irritably against the stone. _Who else, then?_ He was fairly certain that neither he nor Boss could have earned the wrath of anyone in Sigil, unless Mephistopheles had allies here. _No…he was a devil of the hells, with his cold playground in Cania, and all his minions there with him. _

_Who else, then?_

_Grimash't. Goat-man's old master. _

_But Grimash't was dead. _

_But Grimash't could have friends still breathing. _

Deekin tapped his tail against the wall thoughtfully. Sigil was a big city, and did not work like any other place Deekin had ever known, so how could he track down any old allies of Goat-man's old master?

_Sure, _he thought sourly. _Just march out onto the streets of Sigil and start demanding to know where Grimash't's old friends live. And whether or not they've recently kidnapped a tiefling and a human woman. That'll work. Sure, demons listen to kobolds all the time. _

Deekin snorted and flicked his wings straight. _Well, only one place to start. _

Trying not to think too hard about it, about whether Boss was alright, about whether there was any hope of finding her and Goat-man, he padded back inside. The taproom was mostly empty, so he cornered the tiefling innkeeper again. "Innkeeper?"

The tiefling sighed. "Yes, Deekin?"

"Deekin has thoughts about where Boss and Goat-man might be."

"And?"

"Deekin wonders…ever heard of demon named Grimash't?"

The innkeeper frowned. "No. And may I suggest you stop calling me 'innkeeper'? My name is Saibatar."

"Really? Strange name. Sure not heard of Grimash't?"

"I'm sure. There's demons all over this city, Deekin. That one I've never met."

"He be killed years ago."

"Well, that might explain it."

Deekin hopped up onto the nearest stool and sank his claws into the bar. "Well, then what about a strange tower?"

"A strange tower?" The innkeeper gave a short laugh. "Deekin, this city is filled with strange towers."

"Alright. Strange tower on a hill near a merchant's mansion."

"No, still doesn't jog any memories. Could you find it?"

"Umm…no. Goat-man could."

"But he's not here."

"Nope." Deekin stared down at his hands. "Deekin _really_ needs to find Goat-man and Boss. Deekin thinks they been stolen from their room."

The tiefling arched a skeptical eyebrow. "From their room."

"Yep. Room be empty. And locked."

"They could have gone somewhere. They've been on escort work lately, yes?" Saibatar turned, hooked up a clean tankard. "Drink?"

Deekin nodded. "Drink be nice. But Deekin would have seen them this morning. They never _came out_ of room."

Saibatar filled the tankard to brimming, pushed it across. "They been having any trouble?"

"Little bit." Deekin took a sip of the ale and quickly told the innkeeper about the tower, and about the ambush on the way back, and how the stranger had seemed to know something of Goat-man, and his flail.

"Alright." Saibatar cast a quick glance over the kobold's shoulder, scanned the nearly empty taproom. "Look, I really don't know where they might have run into that. I'll do this for you, though. I've got maps you can have."

"Maps?"

"If you're insisting on trying to find out where they are. Stay here."

Deekin hummed and sat, waiting while the tiefling vanished. He finished more than half of the ale, far too quickly, by the time Saibatar returned, arms laden. A handful of rolled-up maps were laid before him, tied with twine.

"Keep them," the tiefling said. "Another drink?"

"Umm…Deekin supposes." He eyed the pile of maps. "Deekin wonders…got any suggestions?"

"Be careful," Saibatar said seriously. "If they've run into real trouble, you'll have a time getting them out of it. Other than that, I don't suppose I could convince you not to even try?"

"Nope," Deekin replied. "Deekin got to try."

The door opened, admitting a blast of cool air and a trio of mercenaries, who stamped across to the bar and demanded ale and food without delay. Deekin stayed quiet and finished his second drink while Saibatar served them. When the empty bottom of the cup gleamed up at him, he inclined his head at the innkeeper and jumped off the stool.

Upstairs, he ventured back into Boss and Goat-man's room, and sniffed the still air. The silence yielded no more results, and he found himself ambling across to the window and sitting. He did not fancy his chances, out in Sigil's teeming streets, and he fancied them even less if he found some trail leading to old enemies who were likely to be demons. Still, he loved Boss, if not in quite the same way Goat-man did, and he could not sit here and not try and let the gods know what happen to the two of them. Deekin looked at the empty floor and irrevocably decided.

Something had to be done.


	13. Chapter 13

_**Chapter Thirteen – Captured**_

Jaiyan opened aching eyes, saw nothing but darkness. She remembered…what? The steep, rolling streets of Sigil, laughing with Valen in the tavern, nuzzling the side of his neck while his long hair tickled her face. Then upstairs, and into their room, where the air had changed, had dragged thick and solid and tasting of metal across her lips.

She inched forward, felt stone beneath her. Realised with a sudden chill that her sword was missing, her dagger gone. Thick, heavy loops encased both her wrists, and there was a dull coldness around her ankles. _Shackled, _she thought. _You're shackled. And gods know where your weapons are._ She leaned back, and her head reeled. Another shift to one side, to take her weight off the foot she was sitting on, made her stomach flip.

_Valen. What if he's not here? What does it mean? No. Stop. Stop thinking. _

She remembered the way he had stared at the stranger with the odd eyes. How his face had turned grey when he realized the stranger _knew_ him, had recognized Devil's Bane. She chewed the inside of her cheek, decided she could no longer stand the silence, and whispered, "Valen? Are you in here with me?"

She heard chains dragging against the floor, and then a sharp intake of breath. "Jaiyan? Beloved, are you alright?"

She smiled in the darkness. "I'm freezing cold, I'm aching, I think I'm chained to the wall. Apart from that, my world's just sparkling right now. Oh, and my head and guts feel like I got drunk and then let an orc sit on me."

"Do you remember what happened?"

She heard the confused, thwarted note in his voice. "No," she said. "I remember going upstairs with you, and you realized something was wrong." _While you were far too busy trying to get his clothes off, _she recalled almost wryly. "Then everything went dark."

"The same." Valen sighed. "I don't…Jaiyan, I don't like the smell of the air in this place. The feel of the shadows. It feels…like something I remember."

She felt something very like fear worm under the base of her spine. She moved, heard the heavy clank of the shackles at her wrists and ankles. "What do you mean?"

"I don't want to worry you unduly. If I'm wrong, if I'm over-reacting…"

"Valen, whatever this is, it's doubtful that it's good. And besides," she added archly, "I tend to trust your mad hunches. They're usually right."

She sat through one heartbeat after another, listening to him breathe. She did not push him, knew he would speak when ready. "Beloved," he said, softly. "This place, these stones…they feel very much the way Grimash't's fortress did."

"You…killed Grimash't," she managed, hesitant.

Another rattle and drag of chains. "Yes. I did."

She leaned back, felt the cold wall behind press against her. Somewhere, water dripped. The air tasted damp, stale, old. "Valen?"

"Yes?"

"I love you."

"And I you, my lady." His tone changed, warmed. "I am here, even if you can't see me."

She reached out a hand, touched only air. "Sleep, my love," she heard him say. She sank back against the wall, shivered as she drew her arms up over her knees. Somewhere, between apprehension and odd, light-headed exhaustion, she drifted into uncomfortable dreams.

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Deekin hopped up onto the wall and sighed. His back was aching, his feet were sore, and the dragging edges of his wings were scuffed and filthy. He stared blankly at the bustling streets and wondered why he had ever thought a kobold armed with a few maps and a little determination could have ever got anywhere. Two days of hopeless searching, of stopping people in the streets and asking if they had seen anything, of trying to find Goat-man's mysterious tower, or the merchant's mansion.

Not that he could give up, and nor would he, but if they had been taken somewhere bad, then the trail was getting colder with every hour that slipped by. _Not even counting the horrible things that might be happening even now……_

Deekin tried to stop his thoughts running wild, failed, and jumped back off the wall. He plunged into the crowd, almost sprinting as he made his way up the steep curve of a hill, and through two intersecting alleyways. The ground was colder here, and puddles had seeped up around the cobbles. Even through his boots, he could feel the raw dampness. _Hadn't Boss said they'd gone on escort duty near canals? _

Wishing he was a better tracker, Deekin padded past the high edge of a broken wall and found an archway that led into gloom. A quick scurrying run through took him into another alleyway, littered with chunks of wood and wet earth, pushed up against stone walls. Further on, another high arch loomed over the wide, gleaming width of a canal, stretching back into the shadows.

_There are bound to be thousands of canals in Sigil_, he thought madly. _Deekin could get lost in here. _

_And while Deekin gets lost, Boss might be getting hurt. _

He gritted his teeth, called up a light spell, and rushed under the arch. On his left side, the water stayed flat and dead-looking, and smelled of mildew and rot. He remembered the corners and walls of Old Master's cave smelling like this when the ice melted a little in the summer and the water pooled and turned bad.

A dismal half-afternoon's plodding took him nowhere except past more canals, and through more archways, and down the occasional slope. According to the maps the tiefling innkeeper had handed over, he had come a good league and a half south, and he was still underground, or at least, under stone roofs. Boss had told him that she had learned that merchants often used the canal tracks to move wagons away from the bustling streets. Yes, there was danger, but that was why escort teams were paid well, Boss said. He slogged up another slippery hill, his magelight bobbing along after him. He imagined he must look an absolute spectacle, a kobold covered in mud and the gods knew what else, labouring along in the dark, somewhere in Sigil. Still, Boss had always said she never minded what he looked like, and anyway, she had punched more than one human who had dared to say something nasty.

Around the next corner, light slanted. Deekin paused, and called his own pinpoint of light closer. He heard voices next, male and low and muttering. They sounded mostly at ease, not raised, and not angry. Then feet scraping against stone, and the jingle of metal, perhaps buckles on weapon belts or armour.

With his heart fluttering somewhere near his mouth, Deekin emerged round the corner into the glow of torchlight. There were six of them, all tall and big, it seemed. Clad in leather and chain mail and with swords slung at their hips, and capes falling from broad shoulders. For an instant, Deekin missed being around drow. _Drow be so much shorter…easier to look at without getting neck-ache. _

Most of them smelled a little like Goat-man, all furnace metal and heat, so he supposed he must be dealing with non-humans. He registered laughter, and widening eyes as they looked at him. Hands that had flown to sword hilts relaxed.

The man nearest tilted his head and smirked. "You get yourself lost, kobold?"

"Deekin be looking for someone," he said haltingly.

The man's eyebrows rose. "Yes? Who might that be?"

"Deekin not know name. Deekin only know…Boss worked with them. Him."

"And who's Boss?"

"Boss be girl. Called Jaiyan. Boss worked with mercenaries two days ago."

The man sighed. "Look, kobold, I don't know what you're getting at, but…"

"_Please_ listen to Deekin," he said, louder and higher than he intended. Into the silence that followed, he muttered, "Boss came and worked with tiefling. Tall, very red hair, blue eyes, green armour. Flail called Devil's Bane. Flail came from the Abyss."

Boss had mentioned an exchange, a conversation about the flail. Deekin had never seen Goat-man without it, and supposed it was as much a part of Goat-man as Deekin's lute was a part of him.

The man shifted. One hand drifted down, tapped his sword pommel. "A flail? Demon made?"

Deekin shrugged. "Deekin supposes."

The man glanced down the canal, to where one of his companions leaned against the wall. This one was tall as well, nearly as tall as Goat-man, and the skin that stretched tight over the bones of his face was eerily pale. "Dakesh," the man called. "You worked with a red-haired tiefling lately? Carried a demon made flail?"

The pale one called Dakesh straightened up a little. "Two days ago. Did a few runs with him and some woman he had with him. What's your point?"

Deekin edged forward. "Deekin be looking for them."

"Looking for them?" Dakesh shook his head. "Can't help you. They didn't turn up yesterday, nor today. Their contract's torn up, if they want to know."

"Nope. Contract not important." Deekin clenched his fists and tried to quell the urge to smack some sense into the pale mercenary. "They gone missing. Deekin _knows_ them."

"And?"

"And Deekin wants to _find_ them," he snapped. "Deekin needs to know everywhere they went and what they might have done."

"Really," Dakesh drawled. "And what's it to be for payment?"

"Gold."

"And if I might ask for more than gold?"

This was like the time an innkeeper had threatened to make Deekin and Boss pay just for the pleasure of Deekin playing. Boss had threatened him right back, Deekin remembered, and the innkeeper had backed down. _How had she done it? By not speaking much? By just drawing her sword, and standing there. That's right. _Well, he did not carry a sword, but he did know a few spells. Deekin raised his hand, muttered a few quick words, and waited while a bright corona erupted around his fingers. Snapping and sparking, the energy hissed, and painted wild shadows across the arched ceiling.

Dakesh laughed, raised his hand, and said, "You win, kobold. Gold will do."

Deekin nodded, and did not let the spell die. Instead, with the hot coil of energy still spitting, he asked, "Deekin needs to know where you went. Merchant with contract…where does he live?"

"You need to know that? Did he kidnap them?"

"Deekin not thinks so. But there be tower near there. Tower that people were watching, or were in. So that people could ambush Boss and Goat-man."

Dakesh blinked slowly. "A tower?"

"Deekin needs to see that tower." The light flared brighter. He was not at all certain he could have taken them all if they attacked, but some part of him enjoyed the way they edged back a little. "Take Deekin to the merchant's house?"

"Alright," Dakesh said heavily. "If you think it'll help. You'd better have gold on you, though, kobold. Damned if I'm going to trek across the city for nothing."

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The darkness had stayed unbroken for countless hours. Jaiyan knew only that she was hungry, and that her head felt heavy. The inside of her mouth tasted oily and thick. Every movement roused the clank of the shackles at her wrists and ankles. The air was strange here, she had decided, neither warm nor cold, just damp and musty, brushing against her skin. Every now and then, she would speak Valen's name, or ask him something. And it was with increasingly desperate relief that she heard him reply, or move. Sometimes she even found herself asking him to breathe heavier, just so she could hear him, and know he was still there.

She had tried, gods knew how many times now, to reach out and touch him. She had heard him do the same, the links on his chains snapping taut. She thought that perhaps once or twice she felt warmth against her fingertips, maybe from him and the heat of his body, but she was never quite sure. Everything seemed heightened in this total blackness. Her heartbeat was some kind of thunder, and her skin prickled. Every uneven edge of stone beneath her dug into her feet and the backs of her legs. A short motion backwards set her shoulders thumping against the wall, and reaching up showed her only more stone.

Light flared, and Jaiyan blinked at the sudden bright flood. She had not heard doors opening, or footsteps against stone, but yellow torches snapped along the walls. She squinted, looked down. Saw that her wrists were manacled, that she sat some few feet of stone across from Valen. Another quick glance showed the shackles at her feet, and the pale stone beneath.

He wore the same shirt and breeches and tunic he had the last time she had seen him, and his long red hair was loose. He had been divested of his armour and bracers, gloves and weapons. Chains extended down from the walls, looping around his wrists and ankles. "Are you alright?"

He stirred, opening blue eyes to gaze at her. "Yes. I am worried, though."

She nodded. The air brushed her skin, and she tasted dust. The walls around them were pitted and old-looking, arching up overhead. No windows broke the line of the stone, and she wondered how deep down they might be.

Jaiyan dragged her gaze away from the walls and back to Valen. His eyes were hollow, ringed with tired shadows, and she did not like the helpless way his hands curled in his lap. She wanted to reassure him, to tell him that it would all work out somehow, that it would all be alright; but the words died in her throat as the door opened.

Striding over the threshold was a…_what, exactly?_ She wondered desperately. It was tall and heavily muscled, claws sinking into the floor, and wings stretching from both shoulders. A thick, lion-like tail snapped between its knees, and the eyes that glowed in its huge head were scarlet.

"Cambion," Valen said tersely, answering her unspoken thoughts. "Why would a cambion be interested in us?"

The creature paused. Between cruelly-clawed hands, he held a plate with thinly-sliced bread, and dark meat, and a waterskin. His head tilted, and he smiled as he studied his captives. "Valen Shadowbreath. You look so much the same. All righteous fury."

Valen scowled. "You know me?"

"Of course." The cambion's smile widened, and he laid the plate between them. "How could I not know the man who killed Grimash't?"

_That name again,_ Jaiyan thought. _Why does it always come back to Grimash't? Because the killing of Grimash't set so many things in motion. Because he was killed by a slave, a slave who had the temerity to escape in the chaos and find revenge when he was followed. _

"And what do you want with me?" Valen snarled. His hands were stiff now, his fingers locked around the shackles.

The cambion's red gaze slid slowly to Jaiyan. "You were never…rebuked properly for what you did, tiefling."

Valen stood, his chains clanking around him. "Grimash't is long dead. Whatever he was to you, this is over. This is pointless."

"Pointless? I don't think so." The cambion's tail flicked thoughtfully. "You already lost one pretty little mortal girl because you refused to behave. And now you've brought this one back here…stupid tiefling."

Valen growled. "Don't touch her."

The cambion turned, and Jaiyan's skin prickled as that deep-set gaze fixed on her. He towered over her, and she hated the sly twist to his mouth. She had stared down Mephistopheles in Waterdeep, and shouted her anger into his face, but here, she was chained, and cold sweat broke out between her shoulders. Here, there was no burning city to save, no sword in her hand and a shield strapped to her arm. Here, her hands were heavy at her sides, and the cambion was very close, the angles of his face shadowed and sharp.

"Your tiefling has something of a taste for little human girls," the cambion murmured. "Though you're not a bit as nice to look at as his last one, I hate to tell you."

Valen's shackles snapped taut as he lunged at the cambion. "Get away from her."

The cambion ignored him. Curving claws reached out, and he threaded one hand through a loose handful of Jaiyan's hair. "The last one had hair the colour of ebony silk," he said thoughtfully. "I remember her. Lovely looking thing, she was, for a mortal. Huge green eyes that could drown a man. Beautiful creamy skin." The cambion turned and smirked at Valen. "Do you remember how her skin looked when it tore?"

"Stop. Now." Valen drew down a shuddering breath. "What is it that you want?"

"You." Another smile split the cambion's face. "For killing Grimash't. For escaping. For walking away."

"If this is about revenge, then leave her out of it." Valen's voice shook, with anger or uncertainty or both. "Let her go. You have me. Let her go."

The cambion laughed. "Now where would be the amusement in that?"

With that, he gave a brisk wave of one huge clawed hand, and prowled back out the door, leaving them alone with the flickering torchlight.

Valen slammed his fist against the wall. "We should never have come back to Sigil. I'm sorry."

Jaiyan leaned out as far as the chains would allow, could not quite touch him, even when he did the same. "It's not your fault."

He did not look up. "It is. I should have thought this through. Grimash't had allies. Powerful allies. And now in all my wisdom I've let them take us."

"Valen, you haven't _let_ them do anything," she said firmly. "We will survive this. We've survived worse, remember?"

She meant the cold wastes of Cania, of days spent trekking through ice and snow, wondering if the Knower of Names could ever be found. If Mephistopheles could be defeated. _If they could escape Cania before the demon's blood in Valen's body killed her. _Unspoken, the memory floated between them, that her sheer stubbornness had stopped her from sending him away out of fear of his taint.

"This is different," he said eventually. "When you're chained to a wall, you can't fight back. And I'm afraid they'll…" He fell silent, shook his head.

"Afraid they'll what? Talk to me, Valen."

He shook his head again. "I don't want to see you hurt."

The dull, hopeless note in his voice turned her skin cold. To distract herself, Jaiyan looked at the plate. "Think it's poisoned?"

"Not yet." One side of Valen's mouth lifted. "That would be far too quick, wouldn't it?"

She pouted at him, reached out and broke a chunk off the bread. It proved hard and almost tasteless, but her stomach was growling, and she swallowed a decent portion of it. Valen picked at his half, and she saw his eyes darting, not quite fixing on anything.

"Valen, love," she said quietly. "This is not your fault."

"Isn't it?"

"No." She shoved the plate closer to him. "It isn't."

He said nothing, only stared at his hands, looped now over his knees. She noticed how pale the skin on his wrists seemed, banded by the manacles. A quick glance back up showed his face entirely closed off, his blue eyes hard and fixed on some point to her left. So, with little else to do, Jaiyan wrapped her arms around her shins and tried not to think about the cambion, or what might happen the next time the door opened.

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Deekin trekked up another winding hill, watching the fall of Dakesh's cape as the mercenary stalked along in front of him. A bag of gold had already changed hands, with another promised once they reached the merchant's mansion. Still, toiling through the late afternoon crowds had left Deekin feeling tired and agitated, and with some horrible feeling tickling at the back of his mind. _If just the streets of Sigil are this hard to navigate, how was he ever going to find Boss?_

"That's it, kobold."

He stopped, peered past the mercenary's tall frame. Rising behind opulent gates, he saw the spread of roofs and columns that must have been the merchant's place. _Now, what had Boss and Goat-man said? The tower was seen when they turned, and looked to the north. _Deekin hopped around, and swallowed when he saw the sharp tip of a tower, reaching up against the shifting sky. There were low buildings in front of it, just like Boss had mentioned, and some shacks. He stared at the cold, grey stone, and felt his skin itch. "Know what that tower is for?"

Dakesh sighed. "Slave traders used to be around here. Far as I know, it's not used for anything much anymore."

"Sure?"

"No," he answered. "But I can tell you there's no dungeon or holding pens underneath anymore."

"Nope?"

"No." Dakesh shook his head. "There was a whole three levels underneath, years ago, but the whole place caved in when a bunch of githyanki slavers attacked it. Messy business, that."

Deekin squinted at the tower. "Show Deekin around inside?"

"Do I look like a guide for hire to you?" Dakesh raked a hand through his hair. "It'll cost you. Extra if I have to kill anything."

Deekin grinned, all teeth, and trailed him between the low, dark buildings. The air moved oddly here, seeming to drag across his nose and mouth. And when they stepped through a rough gap in the wall, there was a curious tang to it. It reminded Deekin of the way the wells in Old Master's cave smelled, when the buckets and chains rusted.

The doors were hanging open, and when he jumped over the uneven threshold, dust and mildew assailed him. There was thick, creeping dampness, the dampness of long and old rot. He called up a tiny magelight, and flinched when the shadows wheeled, showing him half-buckled-in old stairs, and stone gouged with age. He looked down, saw footprints, stamped into the dust. Some of them circled near the doors and did not go very far, and he saw that one pair was far larger than the other.

Boss and Goat-man must have been here. He remembered Boss talking about walking a little way inside the tower, and talking with Goat-man. He breathed in deeply, but the cloying air gave up no secrets. He took another step forward, onto wood slivers.

"You're not going upstairs." The mercenary leaned against the doorframe, one eyebrow arched. "The wood's rotten, and gods know what's up there."

"Deekin not weigh much."

"I'm not going up there," Dakesh said firmly.

Deekin wondered if it was time to try threatening again, but he remembered Boss telling him that sometimes carrots work better than sticks. After a long debate about why vegetables needed to be involved at all, he had understood the gist of it. He swung his pack around, and dug into it. He found what he was looking for, a wrapped package nearly the size of his hand. He flicked it across to the mercenary. "Deekin wonders if this might help?"

Dakesh peeled the package open, and smirked when he saw the emerald nestled inside. "Just a little."

Up the creaking, damp-splotched stairs, with the mercenary beside him, Deekin discovered more dust, and a doorway that led to a long corridor. The magelight floated down ahead of them, revealing curving walls and thick patches of mould and old bits of wood. Deekin edged down the corridor, aware that his heart was hammering. He could see the out-flung edge of a door, and broken splinters on the floor beneath. There was nothing moving up here – nothing that he could hear, in any case – but that did not slow his pulse. _Boss and Goat-man had heard something. Something moving above them. _The magelight darted around ahead of him, spilling into the room beyond.

Deekin followed it, and was not sure whether he was relieved or frustrated to find the room empty. Thick layers of dust on the walls and floor, an old table piled with yellowed parchment, overturned inkwells and the brittle ends of quills. "Why there be writing stuff up here?"

Poised in the doorway, Dakesh shrugged. "Slavers making lists, maybe."

There was no window, and the shadows spun crazily as the magelight moved. Deekin crossed the floor, rifled through anything he could lay his hands on. The curling parchment smelled dry and forgotten, but there were looping lines of words that did not seem quite so old. Perturbed, Deekin scooped up a handful of parchment, and stared at inked columns of numbers and places, times and names.

"Slavers," Dakesh said again. "If it even means anything, it won't help. They have their own codes."

"This be new writing," Deekin pointed out. "Newer than parchment, and room, anyway."

Dakesh leaned over his shoulder, peered down. "Maybe. What's your point?"

"Don't know." _Maybe there was no point. _He flicked through more of the pages, saw the same symbol again and again. Always inked in the left-hand corner, and always small and a tangle of dark loops. "What this mean?"

The mercenary shifted uncomfortably. "Could mean anything."

Deekin remembered kobold gangs painting signs on their armour, or on the doors in their caverns. The bugbear tribes who sometimes ventured into the cold caves he had grown up in usually did the same. Perhaps this was the same kind of thing, and could only be recognized by someone who knew what it meant.

Still, the room and its meager contents yielded nothing else interesting, so he moved off down the corridor, the mercenary following. A quick search of the next three chambers, and two on the rickety floor above. Higher than that, the staircase was reduced to spars of narrow wood, and the stone walls looked oddly charred. Deekin reached out, touched a hand to the scorch-marks. There was a terrible weight, here, in the stones and in the air. _A weight that made him think of Goat-man in Cania._

With little options left, Deekin tramped back outside, the mercenary with him. "Deekin wonders…"

Dakesh straightened up and sighed. "What?"

"Deekin wonders…what if not slavers?"

"Well, what?" Dakesh shrugged, pulled his cape tighter. "You're saying someone waited there, deliberately?"

"Maybe." Goat-man and Boss had mentioned the tower before, and how Goat-man had stood and stared at it. _And they had travelled the streets of Sigil for many days now, _he thought grimly. _Enough time for a clever enemy to notice them_. "Slavers who used to use tower…what kind?"

"Of slavers? Tanar'ri, for the most part. Or working for them. Looking for battle slaves."

Deekin nodded slowly. _Makes sense…Goat-man taken there when very little. _"So where would Deekin find tanar'ri slavers?"

Dakesh laughed. "Don't ask me. I just work the trade routes."

"But Goat-man said you asked about his flail."

The mercenary flushed. "Yes, but…" He shook his head. "You'd be hard pressed to find many in this city who've steered clear of the Blood Wars."

"Deekin needs to know." He twisted his hands together, and desperately hoped he had not wasted another day, while Boss and Goat-man were gods knew where. "Deekin needs to know anything that might help. Deekin not think they be taken by tanar'ri slavers, but maybe by someone who worked with tanar'ri slavers who took Goat-man years ago."

Dakesh scowled. "Your red-headed tiefling. He an escaped slave? Battle slave?"

"Yep."

"Then he'd better pray his old master hasn't sunk his claws into him. Especially if he's tanar'ri. Long memories, they've got."

Deekin shifted, peered up at the mercenary's pale face and deep-set eyes. "That be the problem. Goat-man's old master be dead. Goat-man killed him."

"So you're needing to find allies, out for revenge?" Dakesh barked out a harsh laugh. "Good luck with that. This city's rotten to the core with gods know how many men, demons and monsters looking for every kind of vengeance you or I could dream of. What you need is names, kobold, or you'll lose them."

"Deekin knows that," he snapped. He steadied himself, glared up at the mercenary, and said, "Deekin gots one name. Well, more than one. Goat-man be Valen Shadowbreath."

Dakesh shook his head again. "Well, it's memorable, but I've never heard it."

"Goat-man's old master be Grimash't."

"Grimash't?" Something passed over the mercenary's face, some flicker of awareness.

"Know him?"

"No, not directly. But…I knew people who had dealings with him, years ago." Dakesh narrowed his eyes. "You'll be wanting more information?"

"Yep."

"Alright. I'll dig up a couple of contacts for you, and you'll be paying me nicely." Dakesh swept a raking look over him again. "You _will_ be paying me, yes?"

"Oh, yes." Deekin grinned and nodded. Something had lifted in his chest, some small sense of hope, however distant. "Deekin sings every night at The Curling Feather, so Deekin have plenty of money."

Dakesh spluttered. "I'm sorry," he said. "Did you just say that you _sing?_"


	14. Chapter 14

_First off, a huge thank you to KallistoG for a lovely review - so glad you enjoyed the first story, and I hope you like this one just as much. As usual, most of the characters and places are not owned by me, though Jaiyan and a handful of supporting characters are. And of course, reviews are always welcome. _

_**Chapter Fourteen – A Blood Debt**_

The torches still flickered, and Jaiyan did not want to consider how they had stayed alight. Uncounted hours had slipped past, achingly slowly, while they sat amid the silence and waited. _For what? _She did not want to think about the answer, about what it might entail. She had never shied from a fight, not since she had thumped the boy in her village who had dared say that her sister had bolted out of fear, and likely become a whore in some city somewhere.

_But it's not a fight when you're chained to wall. It's not a fight when you have no weapons. It's not a fight when Valen's sitting there and not looking at you. _

He had barely spoken, responding to her only with single words or a shake of his head. She looked across the bare space between them, and gritted her teeth. "Valen?"

He did not move, but his eyes flickered. "Yes?"

"The cambion. Do you know him?"

"No," he growled. "I told you that."

"Are you sure?"

His chains snapped as he folded his arms. "Do you think I'm lying to you?"

"No," she said, carefully, gently. "But I wonder if perhaps you did know him, and you don't recall it. Could that be possible?"

"Maybe. I don't know." He sank back against the wall again. "Why don't you ask him?"

She looked away, stung.

"I'm sorry." Valen's head lifted, and he tried for a tentative smile. "I didn't mean…I am worried. Very worried."

"I know." She knotted her hands together. She remembered sitting on Cavallas' boat, and listening to Valen's hushed words as he told her of how he had encountered the Seer. How he had returned to Grimash't's fortress, and how his master had sensed his unwillingness. _What was it he had said? Demons know how to torture. _She knew every line and curve and edge of the scars on his back, the proof he carried with him.

_And now they were here, trapped, and chained, _she thought, _and gods know what they'll do to us. _

The door crashed open, dragging the torches flat with the sudden draught. Jaiyan jerked against the wall as the cambion strode back in. Valen tipped his head back and gave the cambion the same kind of relentless stare that she had seen drow soldiers buckle under.

"Oh, don't look at me like that, Valen." The cambion flashed a blinding smile that was all teeth. "I just want to talk to your little girl. What's her name?"

Valen said nothing.

"Oh, be that way if you want." The cambion reached down, pulled Jaiyan to her feet. His skin against hers felt leathery and tough, and uncomfortably warm. "I'm sorry it has to be this way. It just so happens, though, that your tiefling seems to have forgotten that he is an escaped slave, with the blood of his master on his hands. Such a crime should carry a weighty punishment, don't you think?"

Jaiyan pressed her shoulders into the wall and swallowed.

"Oh, don't be shy, little one. What's your name?"

She shook her head.

"I will hurt you, little one. Why don't you just tell me your name?"

"You'll hurt me anyway," she snapped. "Just get it over with."

The cambion punched her, a full, solid hit to the side of the face. Her head swam, and she clenched her teeth through the horrible, lurching moment of lost focus. The cambion's hand tightened on her shoulder, propping her up.

Valen's chains jerked taut. "Get off her!"

The cambion ignored him, and instead dragged a clawed finger along Jaiyan's cheek. "I think I could hit you all day and you wouldn't tell me." He drove an elbow into her stomach, watched wryly as she doubled over, gasping. "I think you're too stubborn." His fist crashed into her chest. "I think we'll have to think up something different."

Jaiyan sagged back against the wall. She ached everywhere, and she could taste blood. While the cambion stroked her hair, and Valen seethed, she closed her eyes and tried to will the pain away. _Get rid of it,_ she thought grimly. _Get rid of it. It's only going to get worse_.

"It's just a question, little one. And not a difficult one, at that." The cambion's thick fingers played through her hair again. "What is your name?"

"Don't do this," Valen said, quietly. "Please don't. Do it to me. Don't do it to her."

The cambion wrapped her chains around his hand, and hauled her up onto her toes. "And why should I do it to you? I know you can take it. I could torture you for _years_ and you could take it, tiefling. But this little one…"

He shifted, closed one huge hand around both her wrists and held her. Her heels were off the ground, and the strain already wound through her shoulders. She looked at Valen desperately, and saw him mouth three simple words.

_I love you_.

She drew in a deep breath and stared at the cambion. _You've survived worse. So far, he's done almost nothing to you. Sure, your shoulders are killing, and you're hungry, but you're alive. Got yourself worse bruises falling off a horse. You _have_ to endure this. Valen did. _

"Oh, you are brave, little one. Maybe you do not have the imagination to wonder what I can do to you."

She said nothing, and bit back a cry as his talons sliced through her tunic and shirt. Methodically, the cambion peeled the fabric back, baring pale skin, beaded with sweat. He leaned forward, and she shuddered as his tongue licked across her collarbone.

Valen growled, and his chains jangled as he stood up.

"Oh, tiefling. Perhaps I understand why you like your women mortal and frail." The cambion's tongue tracked along her throat. "She tastes delectable. Does she taste quite as good elsewhere?"

Valen slammed his fist into the wall.

Jaiyan shook her head at him. _Don't react. He wants you to react. Don't react._

The cambion's hand moved, and the long talons cut into her skin. Jaiyan caught her lip between her teeth, felt blood run hot and slick down her shirt. She looked past the cambion's folded wings to where Valen stood, visibly shaking all over. _Don't react. Don't._

"You are stubborn, aren't you?" There was something very like pleased amusement in the cambion's voice. He dipped the tip of one finger into the blood, smiled. "Your tiefling was stubborn once, as well. Do you know, it was _months_ before he screamed properly, even once?" The cambion stepped away, let her slump helplessly against the wall. "Do you remember, tiefling?"

Valen stayed silent, and Jaiyan saw the quivering in his hands where they were locked around his shackles.

The cambion laughed. "Maybe a few days without food will remind you."

He waved again, that flickering of his clawed fingers that made Jaiyan seethe. _Calm down,_ she thought. _He leaves you with a gash the length of your collarbone, and you're angry because he _waves_? Yes, that's very sane, that is. _She waited until the door closed and locked before yanking furiously at her chains. "I am going to _hack_ his hands off and then _feed_ them to him, _after _waving them at him."

Valen laughed, but she heard the sour note underneath. "Are you alright?"

She glanced down, saw a liberal patch of blood on the front of her shirt. "Yes, just soaked." A quick exploration showed the gash to be thin and shallow. "It stings, but I think I'll live."

"You'd better," Valen muttered.

"I will, if only to have the satisfaction of seeing you cave his head in after we get out of here."

"And how exactly am I going to manage that?"

"By helping me figure out a way to get out of here." She sat back against the wall, clasped her hands in her lap.

"We're _chained_ to the _walls_," he said acidly.

"Oh, really? I hadn't noticed." She glared before shaking her head. "I'm sorry. I just think…there _has_ to be a way out of here somewhere. There's always a way out of everything."

"Not this."

"Oh, aren't you a happy ray of sunshine in this dismal dungeon?" She swept her hair back over her shoulders, winced when she caught a thick lock against the cut on her collarbone. "Valen, I am going to go stark raving mad if I sit here thinking about what he's going to think up next to do to us." She dug her fingers against her temples. "Are your shackles on properly?"

"Yes."

"Can you break them?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"_Yes_."

She glowered at him. "Don't snarl at me. You're just…you're very strong. I was thinking if maybe the metal was rusting, or…"

He gave his chains a fierce tug. "It's not."

Jaiyan sat still and silent for a few moments, her thoughts whirling horribly. Her shirt felt sticky and damp, and her stomach was rumbling. "What do you think Deekin's doing?"

Valen snorted. "He's probably got that tiefling innkeeper up against the wall demanding to know where you are."

"Where we are." She shot him an arch look. "He does actually think a great deal of you."

His mouth crooked into a cynical smile. "Yes, because I do all these wonderful things for you, like get you captured and hurt."

"Oh, stop it." She drew down a deep breath, pushed aside the urge to snap something else at him. She stared down at the manacles on her wrists. They were rough and cold, and the bolts in them were huge and heavy. She tried pushing one of them against her hand, and winced when then edge of it dug into her skin. "I suppose scraping all the skin off my hands to get these off would be a silly idea."

"Yes, and not really worth the result, since you'd be useless afterwards." Valen leaned back against the wall and sighed. "Same goes for chewing your hands off, so don't bother suggesting that."

She grinned. "You know me so well."

"Jaiyan?"

"Yes?"

"I am so sorry." He shifted, looked at her from beneath tumbled red hair. "About this."

"I know. And that's the last time you're allowed to say that, understand?"

"Say what?"

"That you're sorry." She picked at a flake of rust on one of her manacles. "Gods, I could do with a drink."

"Oh, yes, why not?" Valen laughed helplessly. "After all, what goes better with imprisonment and torture than a nice tankard of the innkeeper's best?"

Her smile widened, and something fluttered in her chest when he returned it tentatively. "See? Not everything's bad."

"Really?" he said heavily. "You'll have to enlighten me on that point."

"Well, you still have your nasty, understated sense of humour."

He scowled. "My sense of humour is not nasty."

"Sometimes it is." She shrugged and threw him a quick grin. "That's alright. Mine's downright horrible sometimes."

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Nathyrra locked her fingers around her wine cup and desperately wished she was elsewhere. Out in the practice field, hurling knife after knife at targets. In her rooms, reading. Striding through the armoury, checking supplies. _Anywhere but here, in this damnable council chamber, while they all _stare_ at me. _

Two seats down from her, a female cleric tipped her head back and said, "Matron Mother, with respect, keeping this stranger alive serves little purpose."

"You would prefer him killed?" Nathyrra kept her face still, though her pulse was thumping wildly. "Why? So we can prove to ourselves we are worse than the drow who attacked this city?"

The cleric did not back down. "Has he sworn himself to Eilistraee?"

"No."

"Then he cannot be trusted, and I am not sure if he is safe to leave alive." The cleric spread her hands against the table. "Matron Mother, would you let a danger to us walk unleashed?"

"Would the Seer have turned him away?"

Silence fell. Further down the table, a male wizard leaned back in his chair and sighed. "Matron Mother, the Seer is no longer with us."

_And I do not have half her wisdom. _"We keep this city the way she left it, as was agreed," Nathyrra snapped. "That _includes_ not killing helpless strangers when they fall through our gates covered in enough wounds to bring down five scouts."

"Then why, Matron Mother, have you not released him? Let him walk about the city unhindered?" the cleric asked innocently.

_Because I just gave him his sword back. Because I don't trust him, or any of you, and you know it. _"His wounds are still mending. He is still very thin."

"Has he spoken of why he came here?"

As Matron Mother, she knew she could demand their fealty and refuse to answer their questions. _But that would mean a return to those old ways, wouldn't it? A return to the time when all problems were solved with the edge of a knife, and trust was a word that meant nothing except the expectation of betrayal. _"Not really," she heard herself say. "His group was attacked. That is all I know."

"And he was under loyalty to who?" the cleric asked.

"I don't know," she lied. The words came easily, despite the falsehood; a childhood spent in Menzoberranzan had taught her too well the ability. _Still, they're all drow as well, and they know how easy it is to lie. But you say 'Valsharess' just once and they'll forget that a lot them came from the same place, and they'll have him stretched out and gutted before you can blink. _

"Could he be useful?" the wizard inquired. "Once mended, if he stays?"

"He's a scout. He survived to get to us. I'd say he could be useful."

Another cleric folded her arms and grimaced. "I fail to see how one more male carrying weapons in this city would be of more use than him dead and unable to trouble us. We don't know where he came from, what he wants, or what he might do. He's unknown, and that makes him dangerous."

"What he _wants?_" To calm herself, Nathyrra raised her cup, drained it. The sweet, heady wine hit the back of her throat too fast. "He wanted sanctuary. He wanted to be _safe_. Half of this city came here seeking sanctuary, and the other half came here to escape something. Or are we all forgetting that?"

The quiet descended again, and Nathyrra found herself wondering what the Seer would do next. _Give them some inspiring speech, stay gentle but steely, and have them all convinced with a few words. _"_I_ came here seeking sanctuary. Can you – _any_ of you – tell me truly that you do not remember what it was like? Coming to this city and hoping the rumours were true, that you were going to _live?_"

"The fact remains," the wizard said. "We need to know his intentions, and his ability. Perhaps, Matron Mother, you could take him to the practice fields, and test him?"

"He is not well."

"He's had days, and healing." The wizard looked at her, the challenge bright in his red eyes. "Or would you prefer to see your city fall into danger?"

_Gods above and below, this was easier when Imloth and the Seer were here. If someone snapped out of line, Imloth could talk them down, or the Seer could persuade them, or if all else failed, Valen just shouted. _"Of course not," she answered coldly. "When, then?"

"Today," the female cleric suggested, still smiling. "Will that please you, Matron Mother?"

Nathyrra smiled, the kind of smile that had made Red Sisters quail. "Of course."

Finally out of the council chamber, and simmering with cold, bone-deep anger, she stalked up the stairs in the temple and wondered if it might have been easier to just kill her entire council. _Of course, that would leave a lot of bodies to explain. _

She found a spare set of leathers in the chamber that she had turned into a small armoury on the first floor. Still fuming, she kicked Andaryn's door open, and felt slightly perturbed when he did not flinch. Instead, he merely raised his head and gave her a half-smile.

"Put these on." She flung the leathers at him. "And quickly."

He uncoiled from the windowsill, eyebrows arching. "Dare I ask why, mistress?"

"My council feels that it is time to see how dangerous you are." Viciously, she added, "You're to come with me to the practice field. There, we will give you weapons and see if you're stupid enough to try and attack me, or them, or whether you'll just give us a decent demonstration of your abilities."

"And if I accomplish the latter?"

"Then I assume they'll decide you're the patient kind of assassin, instead." She paced across the floor, tapping at the handles of two daggers.

"Ah, mistress. Do I hear a note of concern in your voice for me?"

"Don't flatter yourself." She looked back at him, watched as he pulled his tunic off. The shirt beneath clung to the lean, muscled planes of his chest. "I will _not_ see them turn this city into anything other than what the Seer meant for it."

"And what is that?" He tugged the leathers on, swiftly yanked the laces tight.

"Somewhere safe." She shrugged. "Somewhere where we don't slaughter people simply because they have the audacity to ask for sanctuary and help."

Andaryn brushed his hair back over his shoulders. "I'm rather glad to hear that," he said. "Now, should I take my sword?"

"No. As far as this test of theirs is concerned, you are a weaponless prisoner."

"Indeed?" His eyebrows lifted again. "Have you been _lying_ on my behalf, Matron Mother?"

She snorted. "Perhaps a little. Are you ready?"

"I have one more question," he said, a little quieter. "What of the things I have told you?"

He meant those terrible words of some scant days ago, when he had spoken of death and blood in the darkness, and no visible enemy. "I have said nothing," she confessed. "Do you think I could go to them and tell them what you have said to me? Your words would be dismissed as fanciful lies, told to string us along before you do whatever it is you are really here for."

"Will you tell them?"

"Only when you have told me the rest. Without that, I have nothing but pretty words and no evidence."

His eyes glittered strangely. "What about my injuries?"

"You could have fallen into a trap, down a cliff, run into a party of duergar and come off worst. You could have been beaten by your mistress. Anything. Wounds alone will not prove anything." She studied him, saw the wary tension in his frame. "Come. We have to go."

She led him down through the temple, and out into the city. He walked beside her, head defiantly up, and she had to hide a smirk at the slight swagger in his step. Out in the practice fields, near the archery targets, she found most of her council members, waiting and silent.

"So." The female cleric crooked an eyebrow. "Your mysterious outsider. He doesn't look quite as near death as I suspected. A quick healer, perhaps?"

Nathyrra shot her a venomous grin. "Perhaps. So. Your test."

"Yes." The cleric gestured to the bow racks nearby. "Does he know how to fire a bow?"

The Seer would have balked at such dismissive words, Nathyrra knew. _But the Seer is not here, she's up on the surface doing the gods know what with Imloth_. "We shall find out." She motioned to Andaryn. "Choose a bow."

He smirked and inclined his head. "I'm not much of an archer. I am sure the Matron Mother's soldiers would put me to shame."

Even so, he picked the third bow along, ran his hands up and down the gleaming wood. He swung a quiver across his shoulder, and nocked an arrow. He spent a heartbeat lining the shot up, and then the arrow flew, and thunked into the target, an inch away from the centre. Without speaking, he fired the next four arrows, and smiled faintly as he replaced the quiver and handed the bow to Nathyrra.

The cleric smiled. "Your own preference, male?"

"Swords, mistress."

Nathyrra looked past the cleric, to where one of her male, soldier councilors stood, leaning back against a weapon rack. "You, take a sword. Spar."

The male bristled, and glanced at the cleric. She shook her head firmly, so he drew his sword slowly. "As you wish it."

Andaryn glanced at the sword rack. "May I, mistress?"

Nathyrra nodded. "Go ahead."

"Rules?"

"Spar," the cleric said, smiling thinly. "And we will observe."

It was nothing more than a baited trap, Nathyrra knew; he would be pushed to lethally defend himself, and if he succumbed, he would be branded an assassin. She had seen the same sort of dreadful test too many times, in the arena and during her own training.

Andaryn chose a light, slim-blade sword, similar to his own. He exchanged a quick, heavy-lidded look with Nathyrra. "May I begin?"

She nodded again, did not quite trust herself to speak.

He stepped away from the other male, giving himself space. The sword was clasped lightly in his hand, and she noted his deceptively loose stance. It was one she knew well, bred into assassins as they were trained; that graceful, relaxed pose that could be turned in a heartbeat into something far more dangerous.

He waited, circling, while the other male matched him step for step. Turning, eyes pinned on each other, they moved with that coiling, preparing stillness that she recognized so well. Her gaze wandered up and down him, noticing the predatory tilt of his head, and the way his mouth was still twisted into a half-smile. The other male lunged first, his sword sliding against Andaryn's, before snapping up and flicking towards his face. Andaryn melted away, batting the sword aside. He spun, deflected another two strokes. Another swiveling motion took him further away, and the other male glared. He bulled forward, crashing shoulder-first into Andaryn. Who drove an elbow into his stomach and danced away again, leaving him half doubled over and furious.

Watching, Nathyrra smiled. _He's good. He's playing with him, working him up into a mighty tantrum. _

The other male snarled and hurled himself forward. Again, maddeningly, Andaryn seemed simply _to be not there_. He slipped aside, snake-quick, and used the flat of his sword to send the other male almost sprawling. He turned, met the next rush with his forearm. His sword hilt snagged against the other male's. Breathing hard, the other male lashed out with one foot, caught Andaryn a glancing blow to his left calf.

_Where he'd had that awful injury,_ Nathyrra realized. She watched him stagger, recover his footing quickly, and duck another sweep of his opponent's sword. _He's still on the defensive,_ _but what else is he meant to do? Attack, and injure, and be accused of trying to kill, and he knows it. But stay too defensive, and he'll get skewered. _

They traded strokes across the practice field, Andaryn always half an instant ahead, ghosting away from the other male's angry attack. Some part of Nathyrra's mind wondered how he would fight properly, on a real battlefield, or else out in the dark caverns of the Underdark.

The other male leaped again, lifting himself clean off the ground. He thudded into Andaryn's shoulder, driving him back a stumbling three paces. The sword whipped round, screeched against Andaryn's, and sliced a long, shallow cut across the top of his shoulder. Nathyrra saw blood leak through the gash in his leathers, and felt herself seethe. _The leathers are new, and I've just had him healed, damn you!_

Andaryn whirled, smashed the other drow's sword aside. And stepped back, his blade dropping low, waiting for the other male to pick up his pace. _Oh, Lolth and Eilistraee and every goddess in between, _Nathyrra thought angrily. _Do something! Don't just stand there. He'll have you pinned through the chest and who to blame but you for wanting to be believed?_

The other drow growled something, and Andaryn smirked. He did not move, only stood there. The other male launched forward, swept his sword to one side and cannoned into him. Driving him off his feet and onto his back. Nathyrra's hand dropped to her favourite dagger. _No, don't. Let go. Help and they'll hate you and have you killed. _

She loosened her grip on the dagger hilt, and watched helplessly as the other male pinned him. An elbow to the throat had him gasping, and then the other drow slammed his sword against the ground until his fingers opened. The sword was kicked away. The other male planted his knees on either side of Andaryn's chest, gripped him under the chin with his free hand.

_Move, you idiot,_ Nathyrra thought, entirely powerless. _You don't move, you'll find yourself without a head._

The other male lifted his sword above Andaryn's throat, and Nathyrra considered screaming, or maybe gutting the female cleric who stood beside her. The blade moved down, and Andaryn's hands flickered up, locking around the other drow's wrist. The sword hovered, perilously close to his neck. For a long, uncertain moment, the other male glared down at him.

Then Andaryn shifted, ramming both knees up into the small of the other drow's back. While he snarled out a startled curse, Andaryn rolled over to one side, yanking his opponent with him. He drove one knee into the other male's thigh. Slammed his head against the ground when he shuddered. He wrenched the other drow's sword out of his hand, leveled the blade at his throat.

Then, silently, he pushed up to his feet, leaving his opponent gasping behind him. He looked down at the sword in his hand, and quite pointedly dropped it. "Tell me," he said heavily. "Is there anything else I am required to do?"

The cleric smiled, thinly, and looked at Nathyrra. "No, not unless our Matron Mother wishes to add her thoughts?"

"No," Nathyrra said. "I am satisfied."

"As am I," the cleric agreed. "For now, in any case."

While her councilors filed away wordlessly, and the drow male picked himself up and stalked past, Nathyrra waited, not quite able to hide her smile. Fairly certain they were almost alone, she watched as Andaryn swept his hands through his disheveled hair and shrugged ruefully. "Did I perform adequately?"

"You certainly silenced them." She looked at his shoulder, at the thin thread of blood. "Does that hurt?"

"Why, mistress. I _was_ right. You _are_ concerned for me."

She ignored him and said, "Your leg?"

"Fine."

But he was leaning his weight away from that side of his body, and she wondered what it might take to convince him to let her have a healer look at the scar tissue on his calf. "Are you hungry?"

"What have I done to deserve such stellar treatment?" Andaryn grinned, unguarded. "Does this mean I have passed your test?"

Nathyrra gave him a raking, thoughtful look. "For now, I think you have."


	15. Chapter 15

_**Chapter Fifteen – Scars**_

Under the relentlessly flickering torches, Valen leaned back and wondered if the unbroken blackness had been easier to endure. Compared, the torches seemed pitilessly bright, and it had been too many hours since he had slept. He was hungry, almost painfully so, but the anger that was boiling somewhere in his chest distracted him. Every time he moved, his shackles rang, and his mind opened up on the other months or years he had spent in a cage, or chained to a wall.

Across from him, Jaiyan was curled and asleep, her head pillowed on her forearm. Despite the torches, she had finally slipped into slumber, and he was not quite sure whether to be jealous or relieved.

He had sat for gods knew how many hours now, ransacking old memories, trying to work out if he knew the cambion. _He knows you,_ the taunting thought suggested. _You must have forgotten him. He knew Kyreia, and what she looked like, and he knew she died…was killed. _

_Did that mean he was there when it happened?_

Grimash't had been accompanied by his usual retinue, but Valen's mind had been so fogged with pain and anger that he could no longer recall them. _Was this cambion one of Grimash't's closest group? And if so, was this why they had been captured? To enact some kind of revenge in his dead master's name?_

Demons had long memories, he knew, and he cursed himself again for ever thinking that Sigil could have been anything other than a trap waiting to close. And now they were here and helpless, and they were going to die, and there was nothing he could do about it.

_Again._ The thought haunted, that he had let his enemies – whoever they were, however it had happened – take them and hurt the woman he loved. _And again, they're going to kill her, in front of you, and you know it. And this time, if you're lucky, they'll kill you afterwards. _

He stared down at his hands, and remembered how he had broken the skin on his knuckles, slamming against the cage bars, the day Grimash't had killed Kyreia.

_Except……Jaiyan is stronger. _He knew that, cold and clear as a sword cut. The thought stung him, that somehow it might be dishonorable to Kyreia and his memories of her. _But it's true. Kyreia was beautiful and delicate and so afraid all the time, and came to you for solace. Solace you were happy to give her, since she said she loved you. _

_Did you love her?_

He gazed down at the shackles, and felt something very like guilt bite into him. _Sitting here and thinking about her? A dead woman, while the one who is living is sleeping? _

But he had loved her, if in a very different way. He had known little about her, past her name, and what she told him of her history. That she had been born in Sigil, a daughter of a thief, and cast away to the uncaring streets, much as he had. And, before her beauty could be turned haggard by a life of begging, had been found by slavers and sold, from one master to another, until Grimash't chose her and kept her. She was little more than a maid, of no use except that she was beautiful, and even Grimash't enjoyed looking at her.

Her beauty had been that of fine porcelain, and he remembered the way her hair had felt, black tresses slipping through his fingers.

Valen snarled, clenched his fists, and winced when his shackles jangled. He looked at Jaiyan's sleeping form and considered how different she was. _Small and stubborn and slender and with those blue eyes you lose yourself in. Brown hair that's soft and lovely, but she twists it into a braid and keeps it tamed. She could drink a mercenary under the table and still have room for a fight. Still, she's likely to endure this far better. However long it might last. _

He shoved that terrible, galling thought aside. _Think of something different. How she looked in that blue dress that matched her eyes and made her look seductive and uncertain all at once. _He remembered the bare expanse of skin between her throat and the top of the dress, skimming just above the curve of her breasts. _How she looks in the morning when she wakes up, lying all over you. That look in her eyes when she plays with your tail and tells you how much she loves you. The way she trembles and sighs your name when you're buried in her, and looks at you as if there's nothing else that matters in the whole world. _

_No…stop. Not _those_ kind of thoughts_. Because he was chained to a wall, and so was she, and now there was heat pooling beneath his waist, and there was nothing he could do, and they were going to die, in any case.

He tipped his head back and swallowed back a curse when his horns scraped the wall roughly. _Never thought you'd be back here again, did you, _some insidious, prodding thought taunted. _Chained to a wall, punished and about to be tortured. With another woman about to be killed in front of you. _He bit the inside of his cheek, hard enough to draw blood. _Except this time you _know _you'd rather they hurt you and not her. _

But the shackles were still heavy at his ankles and wrists. He wanted to snap and wrench at them, until they came away from the walls, or else he exhausted himself and his thoughts were banished. _But that would only wake Jaiyan, and gods know she needs to sleep. _His eyes lingered on her, on the way she breathed slowly and deeply. The neck of her shirt was pulled down, and he could see the faint tracing of scars around her throat, above the long gash the cambion had given her. _The scars he had inflicted on her. _

The door opened, quieter than the last time, and he saw the cambion's head tilt thoughtfully as he stepped through. Scarlet, burning eyes, set deep in ridged sockets. He stared at the cambion's muscled, tall shape and suddenly he was back there again, where his mother worked, avoiding the mistress's servants. They had been hulking and brutish, and he had made the mistake of assuming all cambions were the same. Those he encountered during his time with Grimash't often proved to be anything but; instead, they were crafty, sly and shrewdly intelligent.

It surprised him, even now, how simply he cast his thoughts at such things. Cambions behaved in certain ways, because he had seen them do so, and he conveniently forgot that the same blood thrummed in his body. _The same blood that had seen him do such terrible things, so many times, so many years ago. _

The cambion's feet brushed against the floor, and Valen tried to cool the sudden urge to fling himself at the creature. _He's not close enough,_ he thought desperately. _Not close enough at all. You'd snap and snarl and he'd laugh at you. _

"Sleeping like a princess." The cambion turned his head, grinned, exposing sharp teeth. "She looks so very innocent, doesn't she?"

Valen said nothing.

"Oh, shake yourself out of it. You're here, and I'm here, and you're going to have to talk sometime." The cambion approached, still smiling. "Or I wonder…what could persuade you?"

"I'm sure you'll think of something," he snarled, and immediately regretted it.

"Perhaps you're right." The cambion turned, and strode across to Jaiyan. Valen felt his heart leap into his throat again as the creature crouched beside her and reached out. His claws curled through her hair, and brushed along her shoulder. "Wake up, princess."

Jaiyan stirred, and opened bleary eyes. Valen saw how they changed, how sudden fear lanced into her. She jerked back from the cambion, hitting the wall and gasping.

The cambion laughed. "Don't panic. You were sleeping. Nice dreams?"

"Yes," she managed, waspishly. "They involved strawberries and white wine and you, pinned to a wall with a very long spear."

Another laugh, as jarring as the first. The cambion rocked back on his heels and said, "Your tiefling isn't proving all that talkative."

"Should he be?"

"Well yes, if I want to talk to him."

"What exactly would you want to talk about?" Jaiyan gave the cambion a venomous smirk. "How to properly take care of horns? The correct way to walk in public if you have a tail? I fail to see how you've got anything else in common."

"Oh, all sorts of things." The cambion's grin widened again. "Stand up."

"What?"

He grabbed her by the wrists, yanked her to her feet. "Stand up." His hands lingered too long against her face, and Valen forced back simmering anger. _She was _his_, she was not to be touched by anyone else. She loved _him_, and no man or demon should be touching her. _

The cambion swung her around, held her in place with one thick arm. His other hand fumbled at his belt, finding keys. He unlocked her shackles where they joined the wall, but left her wrists captive. With one quick, practiced motion, he looped the chains through a higher set of rings, so that she stood stretched against the wall, her back to Valen and her hands high above her head.

He stood up, unable to help himself, and not sure what else he was going to do. "What are you doing?"

On his way back to the door, the cambion flung him a blinding smile. "You'll see, won't you?"

There was a terrible, waiting moment, while they both stood there with the door half-open. He could see little past stone walls through it, and more sputtering torchlight and jolting shadows. No clue as to where they might be, or what might be above them. "Beloved?"

She twisted her head, could not quite move enough to see him. "Valen…"

"I'm here," he said fiercely. "Whatever…whatever happens. I'm here."

The cambion prowled back in, and Valen hated the satisfied grin that twisted his mouth. He kicked the door closed. Hanging from one huge hand, he held a whip, and Valen felt something halfway between horror and relief break through him. _He's only going to flog her……is it strange to think of such things like that? That it's a _good_ thing that he's _only_ going to have her flogged?_

The whip uncoiled, and the cambion said, "Do you think your tiefling would care for you so very much if the flesh was hanging from your shoulders?"

Jaiyan snorted. "Your voice is grating, and while I'm not yet intimidated, I am growing steadily more bored. How about you just do whatever the hells it is you want to do, and stop talking to me?"

She was lying, Valen knew. He knew her, so well, and recognized the frozen, half-buried fear in her locked stance. He looked at the dangling tip of the lash, and felt the skin on his back and shoulders crawl. He wanted to scream at the cambion to leave her alone, to demand that he be the one flogged instead, to tell Jaiyan he loved her, that he understood what she was about to feel, but what would that accomplish right now, save a worse punishment?

The cambion drew his arm back, and Valen saw her frame go rigid. The whip cracked out, the tip snapping across her shoulders. Biting through her shirt and drawing blood. She stiffened, and he saw her shake as she tried not to cry out. _This is how it always begins,_ he thought grimly. He could not count how many battle slaves he had seen flogged; how they had all started out like this, obstinate and silent, preferring to keep all the pain inside.

The lash rose and fell again, and again, and again, and Valen felt his eyelids prickle. _Don't weep. Don't. He sees it, and he'll do it all the more. _He swallowed, tried to gulp down a deep breath. _Get a hold of yourself. It's not _you_ it's happening to. _

Again, the whip uncurled across her back. She was sagging against the chains, but they were hooked too high up the wall, and her knees grazed the stone. Blood had soaked through her shirt in uneven patches, and he could hear her breathing coming fast and ragged.

The cambion hooked the whip around his elbow, eyed her thoughtfully. "Mortals always bleed so well. That skin of yours isn't good for anything except breaking, I sometimes think." He turned, and smiled at Valen, and said genially, "She's not nearly as pitiful as your last one, is she? Got quite the spine to her. I'm impressed."

He dug his fingers into the chain links and stayed silent.

"Oh, don't tell me you don't remember. The way she whimpered and wouldn't say anything. The way she fell, when he killed her."

Valen growled. He knew he should remain quiet, say nothing and invite no extra punishment. But the anger was bubbling up again, and he grated out, "Of course I remember."

"And yet you killed Grimash't for her. Didn't you?"

"I killed him for _me_," Valen snapped. "For me as much as for her."

"Foolish tiefling." The lash rose and fell again, and Valen heard Jaiyan's shallow, gulping breaths. "Do you know…Valen, you were found near that whorehouse, weren't you? The one that specialized in frail little mortal girls?"

Valen closed his eyes. From between the cambion's teeth, his name sounded taunting and unreal, the way it had sounded when Grimash't spoke.

"Valen?" The whip cracked out again. "Valen?"

"Yes," he managed thickly. "Yes. Grimash't found me."

"That's right. Your mother was a whore, yes?"

"Yes."

"Mortal, yes?"

"Yes," he said again. The whip rose and fell, and he tried to will his thoughts calm and flat and somewhere else.

"Do you know," the cambion said, amiably, "I think I might have known your father, once. And to think that the same blood runs in you as myself. Strange, the way the worlds turn, isn't it?"

Valen forced his eyes open. His gaze fixed on Jaiyan's hands, locked around each other. He could not quite bring himself to look any further down, not yet. "My father."

"Well, the demon who had your mother that day she was stupid enough to let herself fall with child." Valen wanted to snarl that his mother had been ill, that the potion had not worked, that her mistress had sent her back to work too soon. But the cambion just shrugged expansively and added, "So, yes, your father. He dealt in slaves and jewels, for the most part. Or he did back then. After a deal with Grimash't went bad, he left Sigil, and I haven't heard of him since."

"Why are you telling me this?"

The lash came down again, and Jaiyan jerked against the wall. "I remember him talking to Grimash't, about how he'd gone and accidentally spawned a half-mortal brat with some whore."

"He had never had anything to do with me," Valen said unevenly.

"No. But he knew where you were, at least years ago, before he left. Said you had the reddest hair he'd ever seen, and told Grimash't that you'd lived a few years as a thief."

"What..?" His stomach twisted, and he felt as if he might be falling, or the floor opening up in front of him. "He was _there?_"

"Not really. Just in and out of the city, that's all. He must have seen you." The cambion's red eyes rolled. "He's probably dead now, in any case."

"Yes, but…"

"But, what?" The cambion stretched his arm out again, and sent the lash uncoiling down. "_Now_ you want to talk to me? _Now_ you want to speak?"

"No, I…" He looked past the cambion's muscled shoulder, saw Jaiyan, hanging against the wall. "No, wait…" _Whatever trap he laid for you, you walked right into it. _"Wait, please…"

But the cambion only shrugged again, and turned. And Valen could do nothing but watch helplessly, as the lash rose and fell, too many times for him to count. He heard her scream, finally, the sound wrenching and shrill.

"Oh, well done, princess." The cambion reached out, stroked his hand through her hair. Valen saw her flinch away, try to cling to the wall. "It took more than I thought it would. For that you have my admiration."

Jaiyan twisted her head, glared at him. "I don't want your admiration. I want you dead."

The cambion laughed and turned away from her. His gaze fell on Valen again, speculative. "Turn around, Valen."

_So you can flog me the same way? _"No."

"Turn around." The cambion approached, the tip of the lash dripping blood across the floor. "I won't ask again."

Valen stayed stubbornly still. The cambion sighed, dropped the whip, and found another key at his belt. Another three paces brought him horribly close, towering over the tiefling. _He's going to have to unlock you to move your shackles and make you turn yourself around. Do something. _

He waited wordlessly while the cambion unsnapped the manacle on his left wrist. For a terrible, strung-out moment, he looked past the demon, to where Jaiyan stood, twisting as she tried to look at him. The cambion's gaze tilted up, finding the rings on the wall above him.

Valen moved without thinking. He grabbed the trailing end of the chain to his left and whirled, swinging it up and around the cambion's neck. He yanked it into place and pulled. The cambion stiffened and lurched back, heaving at the chain. Valen held on grimly, hating the proximity, the way the cambion's breath was hot against his face. The wings snapped out, unfurling. One foot raked up, digging against Valen's hip and forcing him back against the wall. The cambion's free arm lashed out, slamming across Valen's throat and leaving him gasping.

The cambion wrenched away, both hands leaping up to his neck. He grabbed the chain, tugged it aside. One huge fist smashed against Valen's temple, and his head spun. He needed to press forward, try again, something, _anything. _But his head was whirling, and his stomach felt knotted, and he remembered then that he had barely eaten in three, four days, maybe more. He heard the chain jangle as the cambion hooked it through the higher ring, leaving him lopsided, half hanging. The bolt snapped into place, and he was vaguely aware of the cambion laughing.

"Why, Valen Shadowbreath. You _do_ have some spirit in there after all. I am impressed." The cambion's face swam into focus, split with a grin. "Perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised. You did, after all, help with the killing of an arch-devil, yes?"

Valen heard Jaiyan's disbelieving laugh. "You _know_ about that?" she demanded.

"Of course. Kill an arch-devil, and the word of it will spread like fire. I think the hells themselves resounded with Mephistopheles' fury when you sent him back there." The cambion crossed the floor again, regarded her sidelong. "Still talking, princess?"

She shot him a poisonous glare. "That's a problem, is it?"

"It could be." The cambion slid one finger along her cheekbone, then down her face to cup her chin. He stared at her for a long moment. "Are you feeling it yet, princess? Regret? Shame? Anger?"

"One out of three isn't bad." She jerked her head away from him. "That would be the third one, by the way."

The cambion laughed again, and stepped back, and raised the whip. Valen closed his eyes, and listened. _Do something. Stop him. Stop him hurting her. _ _She'll be in ribbons if you just stand here and do nothing. _

_Do what? Pull the chains out of the wall? You're on your way to being half-starved as it is. You have no weapons, little strength and he's a _cambion. _Yes, but you've killed things far bigger and fiercer and more than once. Yes, but not while chained to a wall. _

_Stop thinking. Do something. Do something _now_. _

Valen flung himself forward, distantly realized that he was snarling, the sound low in the back of his throat. His tail lashed, and he heaved at the manacles, barely caring when the metal dug into his skin. He could still hear the lash rising and falling, and when she finally sobbed, his mind went flat with rage. He wrenched at the shackles again and again, and wondered if his shoulders might break before the chains did. The pain in his wrists seemed far away, like the voice of the cambion when he spoke again.

"Oh, _such_ spirit. And so well hidden behind your humanity. Well done, tiefling. You _have _impressed me today."

Through narrowed eyes he saw the cambion unlock Jaiyan's shackles. She was rigid, her shirt sticking to her back and crimson. The cambion pulled her away from the wall, leaving the chains dangling. He turned her around, and pushed her two steps forward.

_Don't trust him. _But still, Valen reached out desperately, and _almost_ touched her.

"Oh, Valen. Nothing is ever easy." The cambion hooked an arm over her shoulder, and tried to steer her across the floor. She kicked out at him, and drove an elbow into his side. The cambion had to wrestle her off her feet and hold her while she thrashed, and Valen felt some small brush of satisfaction. _She's not broken. She's in pain, and bleeding, and angry enough to kick and bite and hit him. _

But then the cambion strode across to the door, Jaiyan still pinned against him, and Valen's heart dropped. _If she's not with you, how will you look after her?_ He hurled himself forward again, and the chains snapped taut. He pulled and heaved until the muscles in his neck and shoulders throbbed. But the cambion did not look back, and he heard Jaiyan call his name as the door slammed behind them. He was alone, with naught but the silence and the chains and the torches. So, left with nothing but the blank anger in his head, he threw himself away from the wall and tore at the manacles again and again until his wrists wept blood and the pain finally overtook his thoughts.

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Deekin trailed up the hill after Dakesh, his eyes on the swaying end of the mercenary's cape. The past three days he had spent in a seethe of indecision and worry, and even today, his nerves were jangling and his fingers shook. He had paced most of the nights away at The Curling Feather, while his mind played nasty tricks about what might be happening to Boss. For one awful, long day, he had thought the mercenary might have gone back on their agreement, but he had arrived at the tavern this morning with news of his promised contacts.

Since he had found Boss again at The Yawning Portal, he had never been away from her this long. He missed her painfully, and had not been able to write, though he had dredged up a few songs for the patrons in the tavern. He even missed Goat-man, and not just because of how Boss smiled and glowed around him. He found himself missing the tiefling's surprising sarcastic streak, and how he blushed whenever Boss said something lewd. Goat-man had become as much a part of Deekin's life as Boss, and he realized that he did not mind, not at all. The tiefling was big and cantankerous and strong and loved Boss more than anything, so Deekin figured that maybe it might be alright, if they were captured and put somewhere together.

_But what if they're already dead? _

Deekin gritted his teeth and followed the mercenary. After yesterday's sleepless night, he had told himself he would not think of such things. But Boss was just a girl, when it all came down to it, and what could she really do, if demons had taken her? Well, Goat-man could help her, but what if he was in trouble, too?

The street led down the other side of the hill and swung off underneath a jagged outcropping. Another quick jog up another slope, and Deekin was looking down at high gates. Beyond, he could see the sharp tops of turrets, and uneven parapets. "We be meeting inside?"

"No." Dakesh motioned him closer. "Just inside the gates. That suits you?"

Deekin shrugged. "Yep."

The mercenary led him to the gates, and slammed his fist against them twice. Deekin heard chains pulling taut, and then the gates creaked open, and he saw shadows and high walls and a human guard in mail. The guard gestured them in, and guided them through tall pillars and into a small courtyard. Long, trailing vines spilled over the walls, and Deekin noticed tiny purple flowers, star-shaped and fragrant.

Sitting on a stone bench was a demon. Deekin stopped and almost backed away, remembered he was in Sigil, and squared his shoulders. He had seen demons in Cania, and had screamed angrily at Mephistopheles, but still, his shoulders prickled. This one was huge and hulking, and it's narrow, wolfish head turned and fixed on him.

"A _kobold?_" The demon snorted. "Your contact is a _kobold?_"

Dakesh shrugged, unaffected. "He's paying me."

The demon stared at Deekin. "And he wants to know about Grimash't."

"Yep. Deekin needs to know." Briefly, and trying not the look too hard at the demon's unsettling, scarlet eyes, Deekin explained how Boss and Goat-man had gone missing, and how he thought some old ally of Grimash't's might have taken them and hidden them somewhere.

"If your tiefling friend killed Grimash't, and he's been taken by someone out for revenge, you might as well give up now."

Deekin nodded. "People say that a lot to Deekin lately. Deekin not been listening."

The demon laughed. "Grimash't was a hoarder, pure and simple. Slaves, treasures, jewels, weapons, wars. Your tiefling friend was a battle slave?"

"Yep."

"Grimash't wouldn't have liked losing him." The demon regarded Deekin thoughtfully. "He had a circle of…not friends. Allies, I suppose you'd call them. Trading partners, some of them. Helped him keep his slavers in business."

"Grimash't really close to any of them?"

"Not really. A few were close to _him_." The demon's gaze flicked across to Dakesh, and then back again. "Two of them are dead, the third I haven't seen in over sixty years. Old trading partner of his, though, set himself up as a slaver after Grimash't was killed. Took over a lot of his coin and slaves."

"Old trading partner think he be Grimash't's friend?"

"Maybe. He certainly handled a lot of Grimash't's business. Or helped with it." The demon's eyes narrowed. "How much are you willing to pay for a name, kobold?"

"Deekin pay whatever he has to," Deekin said flatly. "Deekin _need_ that name."

The demon laughed. "What was agreed?"

Dakesh rested a hand on his sword hilt. "A bagful of gold coin, and two rubies."

"Indeed? What if I ask for more?"

Deekin looked at the demon, and realized he was angry. The demon, Goat-man's past, and the very streets of Sigil seemed to be conspiring against him. He had to find his way through this maze of old names and old enemies and find someone who might not even exist. _Someone who might have taken Boss and Goat-man just to prove that killing Grimash't was a mistake. _He steeled himself, murmured the words to an invocation, and watched the demon's eyes widen. His skin was buzzing, and he could see the shadows fluttering. He was surrounded by flame, he knew, and he could see the edges of it, flickering around his mouth. He raised a hand, palm-up, and balanced a tangle of white energy between his fingers.

"Deekin not sure if Deekin can kill a demon," he said, conversationally. "But Deekin knows a lot of spells, and Deekin can breathe fire now, and Deekin _really need_ that name. So demon can go ahead and ask for whatever he wants, but he'd better expect a lightning bolt up his nose if he does."

The demon laughed. "You win, kobold. A bagful of coin and two rubies it is."

The demon held out a curl of parchment, and Deekin took it, and tried to ignore the horrible truth that his knees were shaking. He let the spells subside, and clutched at the parchment.

"One thing, kobold?"

Deekin passed across the promised payment. "Yes?"

"If you find him, and he's got them, and if they're still alive…"

"Yes?"

"Do me a favour and see if you can kill him." The demon smiled, all sharp teeth and burning eyes. "Though you'll be hard-pressed to get to him in time to save them, if he's even got them at all."

"Where he be?"

"Show Dakesh the name. He'll know."

Deekin nodded, and turned away from the demon, trying to hide his trembling hands. He followed the mercenary back outside, and tried to stop his thoughts from whirling. In his hands the parchment was crumpled, and he wondered if he really did hold the name of the creature who had taken Boss and Goat-man.

"Kobold?" Dakesh leaned down, touched his shoulder. "Deekin?"

Deekin blinked. "Yep?"

"If you show me that name now, and I don't think it's a good idea to go find him, what do you want to do?"

"Go find him," Deekin said. "What else could Deekin do?"

"Pay me extra?"

The little kobold grinned. "Deekin already planning on that. But if Deekin going to rescue Boss and Goat-man, then Deekin has to get some stuff from the tavern first."

It might not even be the right name, he knew. Might not have anything to do with where Goat-man and Boss were. Might just be the name of another slaver living off the profits of trading in living flesh. But anticipation was tickling at the base of his spine, and he realized he was feeling something that he had not at all in the past, awful few days; hope.

Dakesh sighed and hooked his thumbs into his belt. "I'm your humble servant. Lead on."


	16. Chapter 16

_First off, a huge thank-you to everyone who's following this story. Most of the locations and characters and so forth are not mine, though some are. Reviews are always welcome. _

_**Chapter Sixteen – Arrangements**_

Jaiyan glared at the rough stone walls and wondered for about the sixth time if she could pry the door open with her bare hands. _Of course, prior to that, you'd have to figure out what to do with those lovely manacles. _The room the cambion had dragged her into was smaller, with only a single torch and a low wooden door. He had chained her to the wall and kicked a satchel full of healing potions in her direction. She had been so very tempted to throw them back at him, but her shoulders throbbed, and she could feel the blood drying on her shirt.

So she had drained four of them, and waited while the pain in her back receded. The shirt was ruined, and she wanted to tear it off and throw it away and maybe burn it. _Right, leaving you half-naked. That'll work. _

After she had finished off the potions, she had let herself cry. Deep, heaving sobs that racked her and left her exhausted. _You haven't cried like that since…don't remember when. _Afterwards, after she had drifted into uneven sleep and woken to the same torch flame, she had felt very much inclined to dissolve into weeping again. But this time she had shoved such thoughts aside; she could not afford to let herself fall into despair, no matter how tempting. Every time her mind lingered on Valen, and how she had heard him snarling, and pulling at the chains, she banished the thought.

_Don't think about it. You can't do anything about it right now. Don't think about it. _

_But he looked so…broken. _

_Stop. Think of something different._

She tipped her head back, and realized that this was the first time, since that first night in Lith My'athar, that she had been parted from him. _Well, there was that bit where you died, and he died…but that might not have taken long. _She had certainly never spent a night without him since that first time, and the empty air around her felt odd and uncertain. _You're all grown-up, you can manage without him if you have to. Yes, but I don't want to. You went after him in Cania when he went all stupid and tried to run away, so you can find him again here. _He was hers, and he should be with her, not locked in some room with a cambion doing gods knew what to him.

The tears were threatening again, and her throat was tight. She swallowed, and dug her knuckles into her eyes. The shackles wailed, and when she opened her eyes again, the walls remained unchanged. _Deekin will be looking for you. Gods know how he's going to manage finding you, but you _know_ he will be looking for you. But how? He's just a kobold, in the end, and this is Sigil. _

She yanked on the chains a few times, and scowled when all she achieved was sore wrists. With no other option, Jaiyan curled up and began again the tortuous process of trying to think of anyone but Valen. _Drogan. Xanos. Mischa. Anyone. Durnan. Mhaere. Anyone. Imloth. Dorna. The Seer. Anyone._

She slept again, slipping in and out of awareness, and wondering if she imagined the screaming she heard from nearby. _If the cambion's not with you, that means he's either eating apple pie somewhere or flogging Valen or worse, and which do you think he'd prefer to be doing? _She remembered the cold, invasive feel of the lash across her shoulders. The first few strokes had been the worse, she reckoned, when her skin had still retained enough feeling. After that, her shoulders and back had turned numb with the pain. She had felt the blood, flowing and warm, and heard the whip rising and falling. She rolled her shoulders experimentally, and winced when the half-healing skin pulled.

She heard keys jangling, and then the door opened. She pressed reflexively back against the wall, but the figure in the doorway was too small to be the cambion. Not quite ready to relax, Jaiyan watched as he stepped over the threshold, closed the door behind him. He was tall, but not as tall as Valen, and she cursed herself for the instinctive comparison. The skin on his face and hands had an odd cast to it, a sort of pale grey, and the hair curling past his collar was black. He wore rough, patched clothes, and he was staring at the floor with a strange kind of resignation.

_Who the hells is he? _She wondered. _A slave? A servant? A spy? _

In one hand he carried a tray, and she saw a bowl with thin soup and a chunk of bread. "The master said you should eat," the stranger said.

"Did he? How kind." She watched as he placed the tray near her. "What's the master's name?"

He hesitated. "I shouldn't…"

"Alright. What's your name?"

His amber eyes flickered. "I'm just here to make sure you eat."

"Oh, that's nice. A flogging one day and dinner the next." She stepped away from the wall and studied him. She had no way of guessing his age, but the cowed, blank look on his face reminded her of the thralls she had seen in the ilithid encampment. _But that was when Valen was with you, and he isn't now._ Firmly pushing the thought aside, she mustered a smile. "My name's Jaiyan. What's yours?"

"I shouldn't be talking to you. I've been told not to."

"By the master?"

He nodded. "Please eat the food."

_Why would the master need me alive?_ Jaiyan picked up the spoon and silently dug into the soup. _Gods, this is worse than the mess I used to make of trail rations. _Still, it was hot, and she was hungry, so she forced it down, and mopped up the remnants with the thick crust of bread. _So…he needs to keep me fed so I don't die yet. So he can drag me in front of Valen and do something awful again? Probably, and stop thinking about Valen. _

"Thank you." She dropped the spoon back into the bowl and moved away from the tray. When the man – or whatever he was, since she could not tell – picked it back up, she noticed the keys at his waist. "So, do you do this for all the master's prisoners?"

"The ones he wants fed." The man stumbled away from her, and she noticed how thin he was beneath his clothes.

"How many prisoners does he have at the moment?"

"Not many." His eyes darted again. "Do you need any more healing potions?"

"No, thank you." She watched him pause by the door, fumbling with the key. "So, you'll be feeding me every day?"

He tugged the door open and nodded. "As long as the master asks me to."

Jaiyan sat back against the wall as he vanished. _Well, someone scared and almost human might be easier to deal with than a cambion. There has to be a way out of here. _She sighed and tried to calm her suddenly thundering heartbeat. _First problem is the manacles. Sort them out and then you can worry about the door. So how to we get the manacles off? _

She looked down at her wrists, and glared at the shackles. Still, at least in here her ankles were left free. She looked around the small chamber again, but the floor was bare. She had never been much good at picking locks, and figured that any shackles used by the cambion to keep prisoners would be tricky at best. _So, we get the key. Get the key off him. Problem is, you'll only see him once a day, and gods know what could happen to Valen in that time. _

_Stop. Stop thinking about him_.

But her mind proved treacherous, and she remembered that first night with him. When he had leaned forward, and she could have sworn she saw him trembling. He had touched her face first, she recalled, before he kissed her. _And his mouth had been just as soft and warm as it looked_.

Jaiyan swore out loud and slammed one clenched hand into the wall. She wondered briefly if screaming would make her feel better. Instead, she pounded her other hand against the wall. She opened her eyes in time to see the single torch sputter out, leaving her with nothing but the darkness again.

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Deekin sat on the bed in his room and cast the spell the mercenary asked for. _Some spell that will stop anyone hearing us,_ Dakesh had demanded. The mercenary himself was poised on the windowsill, hand on his sword and with his frame coiled with the same kind of leashed energy Deekin had seen in Goat-man. _The kind of energy that could explode and turn murderous if he chose. _

"Right." Dakesh exhaled sharply. "This name."

"Yep." Deekin stared at the crumpled piece of parchment on the bed, and the collection of letters he had found to be almost unpronounceable. Still, he had read a decent number of draconic names, so perhaps this one would not be so tricky after a little bit of practice. "Deekin not quite sure how to say it…"

"Azraleth. And I'm not going near the second name." Dakesh raked a hand through his hair. "You're sure about this?"

"Yep." Deekin nudged one of his packs. "And Deekin has plenty of payment for help."

The mercenary scowled. "Look, kobold. This one's a cambion, and his business is slaves for the Blood Wars."

"Sounds like it could be true. Goat-man was in the Blood Wars."

"He was a bit of a no-name trader until a while ago. Then he took over some fortress, and suddenly he was the one everyone was selling slaves to. Gods know how much coin runs through him on its way to other people. Rumours say he was close with Grimash't, maybe even took over a lot of his troubles."

"Troubles?"

"Grudges. Money. Slave rings. Whatever." Dakesh shrugged. "You go up against Azraleth, you're going to have a rotten bitch of a time getting close to him. And you don't know if it's even him."

"But this demon knew Grimash't." Deekin tapped his claws thoughtfully. "Makes sense. Takes Grimash't's old grudges. And Goat-man killed Grimash't."

"I agree. Sounds like the perfect revenge for someone who helped set him up. But do you really want to die for the hope that this is the right demon?"

Deekin looked up, and met the mercenary's flat stare. "Deekin just needs to get Boss and Goat-man back."

"So I suppose the prospect of a horrible death is not going to faze you in the slightest?"

"Nope. Not really."

Dakesh sighed. "Just checking. Alright. Hand over that payment and we'll talk about strategy."

Deekin scooped up a heavy bag and tossed it to the mercenary. Watched as he loosened the ties and peered inside. "That enough?"

"For now." Dakesh gave him a tired grin and tied the bag to his belt. "Right. You ever had any experience getting into a fortress?"

"Well, Deekin once attack scary drow fortress, but that was with hundreds of drow. And Deekin died."

Dakesh blinked slowly. "So, no, then?"

"Well, Deekin get inside creepy flying Netherese city once."

"I'm almost tempted to ask for details, but I won't. Look, this cambion's fortress used to be one of Grimash't's. It's a damn big place, and a hefty way from here."

"How long it take to get there?"

"A day and a half, maybe more. And we'll have to take the tunnels most of the way, unless you want his servants all over you before we've got halfway there." Dakesh scrubbed a hand through his hair. "Getting inside probably won't be the problem."

"Getting out will." Deekin remembered how he had felt when he and Boss had ventured into Undrentide, and felt the stone shaking around them. The air had been full of dust, and the sound of stones moving. And there had been that terrible point when they had climbed the stairs to the Arcanist's Tower, and he had realized that even if they got in safely, what were the chances of getting out safely? And now he had to try and get into a demon's fortress, and survive long enough to find Boss and Goat-man, and get them out.

"Yes. I've been there a few times."

"Doing what?"

"Dropping off slaves." Dakesh scowled. "There's three lines of gates, all guarded. Then inside, it's four main towers, and gods know how many layers underground. If you're right, and this is the cambion you're looking for, he'll have your friends somewhere underground. There's a warren of tunnels and gods know what down there."

Deekin swallowed. Why was the mercenary telling him all this? If he did not go, then the mercenary did not get paid. "Deekin still going."

"Yes, I know, so you keep saying. Look, you have to know that even if I can get you there, through all those three gates, then we're lost once we get in."

"You drop slaves off there before, though."

"Yes, but I don't know my way around the lower levels. We'd be moving blind. And even supposing we could find your friends, we'd have to get them out. And what do you think's been happening to them while they're in there?"

Deekin shook his head. Of course he knew what would be happening to them – he had heard some of Goat-man's stories. He had spent the past few days trying _not_ to think about what might be happening, because Boss was small and a girl and Goat-man already had enough scars. And now the mercenary was telling him that they might be too hurt to fight, or even walk, and that was something he did not want to even imagine. "Deekin understands."

"Alright." Dakesh tapped the hilt of his sword. "I'm sure you're not meant to storm a fortress with just two people. Well, a person and a kobold."

Deekin snorted. "Deekin not know anyone else to ask."

"No. And I don't think bringing anyone else in that I know would be wise."

The mercenary looked as if he expected Deekin to ask for an explanation, but Deekin understood. Sigil, with its layers of fragile trust and terrible circles of who knew who and who might have worked for who, was beginning to make a kind of sense. At least, in a _trust no one_ kind of way. He certainly did not trust the mercenary, not properly, but he trusted that the mercenary wanted his payment.

"Right. Any chance anyone knows you were with your friends?"

"Nope. Well, apart from innkeeper here and those mercenaries who were with you."

"Good." Dakesh narrowed his eyes as he thought. "You'll need all the weapons you can carry, and food."

"Food?"

"For your friends. If they're alive."

Deekin nodded. "We go soon?"

"Not yet. You'll need some sleep first."

Deekin yipped disapprovingly. "Deekin not need sleep before attacking Valsharess's fortress."

"Yes, well, this is different." Dakesh threw him a stern look. "We've got a trek across the city, and then we've got to attempt the impossible."

"Deekin like attempting the impossible. It makes his day more exciting."

The stern look turned severe. "Go to sleep, kobold. I'll wake you later."

Deekin thought he would not be able to sleep, but he caved in and curled up on the bed. He wondered why the mercenary bothered staying, why he did not just go downstairs or out or did whatever it was that mercenaries did while waiting to start commissions. Instead, Dakesh remained perched on the windowsill, one hand on his sword hilt, and his gaze pinned on the far wall. Sleep crept up, and Deekin drifted off, and found himself in dreams that had too much to do with closed doors and dark tunnels.

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Jaiyan jolted awake and winced when she smacked the back of her head against the wall. The torch was lit again, and she blinked hard. The door swung inwards, and the same man stepped through, bearing another tray and a disgruntled expression. She waited while he closed the door behind him, and smiled when he pushed the tray across to her. "Thank you."

He bobbed his head nervously. "You're welcome."

She ate silently again, scraping the spoon through the watery stew. "I was brought here with someone," she ventured afterwards. "A tiefling. Red haired, tall. Have you seen him?"

He shook his head. "Sorry. There's lots of tieflings here."

"Because the master wants them here?" When he said nothing, she continued, "Why are you here?"

"I was brought here." He picked up the tray, moved it out of her reach. "Years ago." He scrubbed a hand through his hair, and she noticed his fingers shaking. "Look, I have to do something…"

Her skin prickled. "What?"

"Something my master asked me to do."

Jaiyan stood, eyed him warily. "What?"

His hand slid down to a short-bladed knife at his belt. "I have to cut some of your hair off."

"You…_what?_"

He shrugged helplessly. "Master said I have to cut some of your hair off. Not much. And he said if you won't let me do, he'll do it himself."

She swallowed, discovered that her throat was dry. _Why would he want your hair to be cut? Because…because when Grimash't killed Kyreia, he lopped all her hair off first. Valen told you that. But if he doesn't want _all_ of yours cut off, what the hells is he doing? _"Alright," she said unsteadily. "I'd rather you do than him."

He stepped up beside her, and Jaiyan tried to quell the urge to leap away. His left hand moved, pulling her braid across her shoulder. She could smell sweat and charcoal on him, and wondered again whether he was a prisoner himself, or just a slave. _Something of both, I suppose_.

The knife flickered near her face, and she nearly flinched. Mumbling an apology, he shifted away. "It's alright," she said, forcing her tone mild. "I know you're under orders. How much did you slice off?"

He held his hand out, showed her. _Three inches. Well, that's only a few months of growing. _But her throat tightened, and she had to blink rapidly to hide tears.

"I'm sorry," he said, haltingly. "I just…"

"You have to do what you're asked." She gulped down a deep breath. "Do you know how long I've been here?"

"I think seven days." He was shuffling towards the door, eyes fixed downwards. "I'm really sorry about your hair."

Left alone, Jaiyan listened to the key turning in the lock, then switched her attention to the straggling end of her braid. She ran her fingers through the grimy, matted locks and swore. _Seven days. Seems like seven centuries. And you're still sitting here, and you haven't even _tried_ to escape. Well, no, but I didn't think he was going to come in and chop my hair off. _She drove the heels of her hands against her eyes. _It's not that bad. Your back is mostly alright. You can move. He's got keys. What are you _waiting_ for? _

She was not sure. True, she had no clue as to what lay beyond the door, but then, to stay in here meant nothing apart from a slow death, she was certain. _Seven days. And gods know what's happening to Valen. _

She pushed the thought grimly aside. _You can't afford to think about him. _She curled up against the wall, but sleep proved elusive. The torch stayed lit, and it seemed to her that it had been bright longer than usual. Either that, or time was crawling tauntingly slowly. So, with little else to do, she sat with her arms around her knees and stared at the door, and waited for it to open again.

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In Waterdeep, moonlight slanted in between parted curtains and across rough floorboards. Drifting halfway to sleep, Imloth held out his hand, let the silver light play across his palm. He could hear the soft sound of the wind outside, and shutters banging somewhere, not far away. The distinct _separateness _of the night from the day still surprised him; how the city turned mostly silent, and though people still moved through its streets, they moved with a slow, precise vigilance he did not see during daylight.

He had spent the past afternoon helping Durnan in the stables, fixing two loose stall doors, and learning the mechanics of keeping the stables clean. There were only two horses there at the moment, one a courier's and the other an old, cantankerous gelding of Mhaere's. He discovered that he liked the smell of new hay and clean harnass leather, and even the odd scent of the horses themselves. Still, he found himself oddly nervous around them; they seemed huge, taller than him just at the withers, and the bad-tempered, aging gelding had taken more than one chomping swipe at his shoulder while he tried to groom the creature. Durnan, of course, had laughed at his shocked expression and reminded him not to stand around the back of the horse, since apparently they were at least as dangerous from the opposite direction.

He could not imagine _riding_ such creatures, and certainly not to extent of controlling them. Still, the courier's horse seemed to like him, and even nudged the side of his head with its velvety nose. After grudgingly agreeing to let Durnan teach him how to at least sit in a saddle without falling off, he had traipsed inside, and watched as the Seer spoke to Mhaere's friend, Elrenna. The woman was thick with child, near to her time and nervous, but the Seer calmed her, and told her everything was progressing as it should.

Drowsily, he turned, gathered the Seer's sleeping shape against him, and burrowed under the sheets. He loved how small she seemed in his arms, how naturally her body cleaved to his. He curled himself comfortably around her and listened to the rhythm of her breathing. _Short, sharp, and gasping…that's not right_. He lifted his head, saw that her eyes were tightly closed, that the pulse at her throat hammered.

He brushed her hair away from her cheekbones. "You're dreaming." He pressed a quick kiss to her temple. "Wake up."

She twisted in his arms, and her eyes snapped open. "Oh…Imloth."

"Only me." He cupped her face, smiled. "Were they visions?"

"Yes." She drew down a shuddering breath. "Imloth, I saw…I saw Valen, and Jaiyan."

He smiled lazily. "What were they up to?"

She shook her head. "They're…they're somewhere cold and dark. They're imprisoned."

Iciness wormed through his stomach. "They're…what?"

"I saw chains," she said. "Chains, and a wall running with water. I could smell fire, and charcoal, and sweat. I saw Jaiyan…she was hurt."

"Hurt?"

"Tortured." She nestled closed to him. "Both of them…tortured."

He combed his hands through her hair, felt her relax a little against him. "Can you tell me?"

"I saw Jaiyan flogged," she said, her voice hollow. "I saw Valen…losing himself."

Another brittle chill ran down Imloth's spine. He knew the tiefling, and had seen him in battle, had seen how he would abandon caution and thought. "What else?"

"The room they were in was not large. No windows. Torches along the walls, all lit by some spell." Her eyes slid closed. "Their captor is a cambion."

"A cambion?"

"Yes. And he knows Valen."

Imloth frowned. "Where would they find a cambion?"

The Seer sat up, and the sheets slipped away from her bare shoulders. "Sigil," she answered simply. "They are in Sigil."

"Why would they go there?" Imloth reached out, swept her hair aside, let it cascade down her back. "Whatever for?"

"I don't know. Imloth, do you remember, some weeks ago…?"

"Your premonition." He nodded. Of course he remembered; the indistinct, uneasy _feeling_ that had left her unmoored, and whispering prayers that Eilistraee had not answered. The fragments of dream, of darkness and the choking taste of rust. "You think this is it?"

"Maybe."

Something prickled under his skin, close akin to anticipation. He believed her, instantly and utterly; her dreams and her visions had guided an entire city of rebels. And she had seen Valen and Jaiyan in Cania, when he and everyone else thought them dead. "What can we do?"

She kicked the rest of the sheets away. "I'll need to pray. We need more details. There's little to be done with a room that could be anywhere."

Imloth watched as she knelt in the fall of the moonlight, and ran an approving glance over her delicate shape. "And then?" he asked, though he was certain he knew her thoughts; she cared fiercely for the tiefling, he knew, and had ever since he had staggered through the gates of Lith My'athar, begging for sanctuary.

The Seer tipped her head back, and the moonlight lined the sharp angles of her face. She held her hands palm-up, fingers curled. "Then," she said, quietly and full of steel, "We go to Sigil."


	17. Chapter 17

_This chapter is a little longer that it should be, but the blame for that falls squarely on a certain character's shoulders, and the fact that there didn't really seem any way to trim it without losing the flow of it. Anyway, disclaimer still applies, and reviews are always welcome._

_**Chapter Seventeen – Words**_

Valen stared at the wall, at each line and gouge on the stone, and tried not to listen to the drone of the cambion's voice. He had been in here for hours, it seemed, and he still had not shut up. It had started out with questions, and when he had not answered, and only stared down, the cambion had stalked out. He had hoped – briefly – that the creature had succumbed to a fit of temper, but he came back in all too soon, with a retinue of three other demons behind him.

So this time, when he was asked to turn around, he obeyed. Even lifted his hands so they could unlock the chains and reattach them higher. The whip had not fallen for some time now, though he knew his back was striped red enough as it was. The pain was odd, distant, as if it burned someone else's skin. The cambion asked more questions, and laughed when Valen still said nothing. The questions turned into demands, and then more laughter, and finally into some awful tale of a faraway battlefield, where the ground was wet with blood and devils died.

"Do you know," the cambion said, from some point behind him. "Grimash't once told me that you were among his favourites. His…treasure, he called you, yes?"

Valen clenched his jaw until his teeth hurt. That had always been Grimash't's preferred term for him. _Treasure. _He had been a thing, a piece of artwork stuck in a cage and let out to kill for his master. Something to be shown off to vaguely envious allies, as they marveled at why this particular battle slave had managed to stay alive.

"Grimash't said that when you were taken to fight, he simply had to…unleash you."

Valen growled.

"Ah, you _do_ have a spine, buried somewhere in there?" The cambion stepped up beside him, smiling. He reached out, touched the back of Valen's wrist, where the skin was raw and still bleeding from the manacles. "Tore yourself up terribly. Go on and ask. I know you want to. I know you want to know where she is."

_Of course I do. She's mine and I want her back and safe and in my arms so I'll know it's true. _He opened his mouth, closed it again, and tried to will his mind blank. But he had barely slept, these past days that he had spent alone, and his thoughts were swimming. _Alone, and wondering. _Wondering if Jaiyan was still breathing, if she had been flogged again, if they had progressed to the cruelty of hot irons, if the cambion had done something worse.

"Go on and ask, Valen. I'll tell you anyway. You may as well just ask."

He said nothing, only stared at the wall and wondered if she was alright. _She was on her feet and angry right up until when she was taken away. She'll be fine. She'll be fit to burst with anger, but she'll be fine. _

"She's alone." The cambion moved closer. Amicably, he added, "Mortal girls are so frail, aren't they? I suppose that's why you like them. All that softness."

Valen jerked away. _What the hells was that supposed to mean?_

"Surely you understand." The cambion's hand lifted, and one clawed finger traced down the angle of Valen's cheekbone. "You know what it's like, sinking yourself into that softness."

Some horrible suspicion jolted through him. _No. He's lying. If he wanted to do that, he'd do it in front of you just to prove his point. _"You're…" His voice came out rough and strained. He licked at dry lips, tried again. "You're lying."

"Oh, _now_ you speak?" The cambion smiled. "Why would I lie to you?"

_For a thousand reasons, and not a one of them good. _

"She really does taste as good elsewhere. Did you know that?" The cambion laughed. "Of course you did."

_No, no, no, no. _His thoughts were whirling, and he was aware of little beyond the stone in front of him and the heavy weight of the shackles at his wrists and ankles. _He couldn't. He didn't. She wouldn't let him. But she'd be unarmed and chained and you _know_ she'd try but she wouldn't be able to do anything. _

"Valen?"

He wrenched away, closing his eyes as he felt the unfamiliar burn of something hot and wet that blurred his vision. He heard the cambion's laughter, following even when he raised his arms and hoped the jangling of the chains might deafen him.

"Valen." The cambion's fingers brushed against his face again. "I'll leave you to your thoughts."

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The torchlight flared clean and clear and slightly too pale, and Jaiyan wondered again what spell kept it lit. She had counted all the links on the chains, and every missing flake in the wall, and every water droplet that ran down the stone, and anything else she could think of to take her mind away from Valen.

For a short while, she had surrendered and let herself think of him, of how he had smelled and tasted and felt the last time they had made love. The way he had grinned once when she bumped her forehead against one of his horns. The way he looked after a bath, with his scarlet hair slicked down his neck and water dripping onto his chest. She allowed her thoughts to linger, then cursed herself for being so sentimental.

She stewed a little longer, and was halfway through quietly singing one of Deekin's longest ballads, when the door finally opened again. Part way through a stanza that lovingly described a dragon's glittering hoard, she snapped her mouth shut, briefly mortified. _Gods, I hope he didn't hear me singing. Got a voice that couldn't charm a drunk sailor, Drogan always said. _

The man stood in the doorway, his thin fingers wrapped around the tray. He fumbled the door shut, and she noticed how his frame was racked with small tremors. Today he carried sliced meat and bread, and a sudden thought wormed into Jaiyan's head. She waited while he shambled closer, and placed the tray in front of her.

"Thank you." She smiled up at him. "Are you hungry, too?"

His eyes darted to the tray, then away. "It's yours. Master wants you fed."

"I know." Gently, she added, "Share it with me."

"No, I can't. Master said it's your food." He was twisting his hands together, and he shook his head. "Got to keep you fed."

"And I'm grateful." She wanted to stand, but she was afraid the noise of the chains would startle him. "You look hungry. Have half the bread, and I'll have half, and then we can share whatever's left."

His eyes flickered again. "But Master said…"

"He's not here." She smiled again. "I'm hungry, and I know you're hungry too. Come on. Share the food with me."

For a long moment, he said nothing. His fingers pressed and wound against each other. "Even though I cut your hair?"

"You didn't cut much of it. And anyway, Master told you to do it." Jaiyan raised a hand. "Come on. I'm hungry and I don't want to start without you."

His hands lifted to his mouth, and she saw him chew nervously at the backs of his knuckles. His gaze skipped to the tray again, and he sat down, jarringly quickly. "Are you…really sure?"

_You thought I'd take it away, didn't you? Thought I was lying? _That realization stung, but she kept her smile steady. Without speaking, afraid she might startle him, Jaiyan broke the bread in half, passed his share across. They ate in silence, and she moved only to offer the tray to him again. They split the cold meat, but he refused the water.

"No. you have it. Being thirsty's worse than being hungry." He smiled, tentative beneath loose black hair. "Thank you for the food."

"You're welcome." She searched his thin face, saw lines of scars that descended down behind his collar. "What's your name?"

"Kaenor," he said, haltingly.

"Kaenor, do you know where this is? Where we are, now?"

He bit his lip and shook his head. "I'm sorry."

She did not want to push him, did not want to intimidate him. _Oh, yes, like he's not intimidated enough as it is. _"How did you come to be here?"

He ducked his head. "My first master sold me."

"To the cambion?"

He nodded. "Master has many servants."

_I'll just bet he does. _"Kaenor, what usually happens to prisoners here?"

He jerked away from her, pushing up to his feet in an unsteady, jolting movement. "No, I can't. You came in with the tiefling, and I was told…"

"Told what?" Jaiyan stood, tried to hold the chains still. Part of her wanted to shake him until he told her everything that he might know, and the other, sadder part of her wanted to hug him until he stopped shaking. _What had he seen and endured and been made to do, down here in this prison?_

"I can't. I'm really sorry." He stumbled back across the floor, hands diving for the keys at his waist.

_And now you've lost him_, Jaiyan thought sourly. _He's too far, you can't reach him, and now you're going to have to wait a day again. A day while that bastard of a cambion still has Valen. _

The door closed. She flung her head back against the wall and willed away the urge to yank at the chains again. _Doesn't work. Only hurts like the Nine Hells and doesn't get you anything except more bruises. _A scream was bubbling up in her throat, but she firmly shoved it away. _That won't get you anywhere either. Just give you a sore throat, and you'll have no one else to blame but yourself. You'll just have to wait. Wait until he gets back, and then get the keys off him. _

She hammered one fist against her thigh. _But gods it's going to be a long wait. _She breathed in deeply, and tried to think of another of Deekin's songs. _A long one. A really long one that will take hours to remember properly. That one about the band of kobolds who went after the treasure of some ancient lich from Calimshan. _That_ one goes for days, at least. _Despite herself, she felt a grin surfacing as she leaned back against the wall, and, rather tunelessly, began to sing again.

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Sunset closed over Waterdeep, soft copper light fading behind high banks of white cloud. Rain had fallen steadily through the afternoon, and puddles gleamed in the yard behind The Yawning Portal. The loud sounds of the street beyond carried over the wall, merchants calling prices and wagon wheels rumbling against the cobbles. With his hair damp, and his thoughts roiling behind his neutral expression, Imloth crossed to the kitchen door.

He had left the Seer to her prayers, not quite able to conceal his impatience. Even back in Lith My'athar, he had hated how long it seemed to take, how long she needed to kneel in prayer, beseeching her goddess. Much of Eilistraee's guidance came in dreams, he knew, and praying for direct help came in the form of waiting, and patience, and hoping. Still, at least the wait had given him time to prepare, to sharpen his sword and daggers, and fletch another handful of arrows, and make sure his armour was in good condition.

The warmth and smells of the kitchen hit him full in the face as he stepped inside. He called a quick greeting to Mhaere, where she stood beside a huge bowl with one of the serving-girls. He ducked past a swirl of steam, and out into the corridor beyond. Durnan's voice drifted from the taproom, raised in some irascible argument. Imloth darted around the final corner, ignored the startled looks from a couple of men sitting near the window. He discovered Durnan with his elbows braced against the bar, face flushed as he shouted at a stocky, armoured mercenary.

Imloth slipped between the tables, grinned as he heard the innkeeper choose a particularly inventive insult, and said, "Durnan? May I interrupt?"

Mid-tirade, the innkeeper glared. "What do you want, lad?"

"I need to talk to you."

"Alright. But it better be important." Durnan gave the mercenary an ominous glare. "And _you_ can stay right there, my friend."

Hiding his smile, Imloth followed Durnan into the parlour, waited until the door closed. "Dare I ask what his crime was?"

Durnan dropped heavily into the nearest chair. "Silly bastard decided to accuse me of watering down the ale."

"And do you?"

Durnan spluttered. "Never have and never will, and bite your tongue, drow. Now. What do you need?"

"She had a vision. A dream, really." There was no need to explain who, between them, and Durnan straightened up, listening. "About Jaiyan."

"What trouble's she found herself in this time?" Durnan grinned, reached out for the decanter standing on the table.

Imloth watched as the innkeeper poured whiskey into two glasses. He had never quite got used to the taste, found it somehow acrid and slightly sour, but Durnan had once snorted at him and told him it was the best whiskey in the city, and that he had better enjoy it. "That's the problem. It's real trouble."

Slowly, Imloth explained the Seer's dreams, and how she was even now kneeling in prayer, begging for help and some clue as to exactly where Jaiyan and Valen might be. When he stopped, he noticed Durnan staring down into his glass, an unreadable expression on his face.

"Stupid girl." The innkeeper finally sighed. "Why'd she want to go to Sigil, anyway?"

Imloth shrugged, dutifully sipped at the whiskey. "I don't know."

"Well, what do you plan to do about it?"

"Get some more details, hopefully soon, and go and find them."

"Good." Durnan glared fiercely over his glass. "How will you get yourselves there?"

"The Seer will take care of that."

"One of these days, lad, you're going to have to tell me her name."

Imloth grinned. "No. It's one of the few secrets I have left."

"Then I'll just have to get you drunk sometime and hope you slip up." Durnan topped up his glass and sighed again. "Gods, lad. Sigil. You'd better get her out, do you hear me?"

"Yes. We'll find them both."

"And that damn kobold of hers, I suppose." Durnan smiled, but Imloth saw the buried edge of something painful in his eyes. "You got everything you need?"

"Yes."

"Raid the kitchen on your way. You leaving soon?"

Imloth nodded slowly. "As soon as we can."

"Alright." Durnan scrubbed a hand across his face. "You'd better damn well find them."

"We will." Imloth finished the last of his whiskey, coughed. "Lolth herself would call this drink accursed and evil."

Durnan laughed. "For a drow, you've got no stomach for the finer things in life sometimes."

Imloth snorted and pushed up to his feet. "Your compassion knows no bounds." He was halfway to the door when Durnan muttered his name. "What is it?"

Durnan exhaled slowly. "Look, lad. Whatever happens there…just you make sure you bring yourself back in one piece, you hear me?"

"Gods above, Durnan. Are you going to _miss_ me?"

That earned him another glare. "Smart-mouthed drow. Get out of here."

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Under the rippling skies of Sigil, Deekin traipsed along uneven cobbles and tried to shift the weight of his pack on his shoulders. He had packed everything he could, along with wrapped food for Boss and Goat-man. At Dakesh's suggestion, he had left nothing at all back at The Curling Feather, but now he was beginning to wonder if he should have just dumped some of the junk that was now digging into the base of his spine. After a little silent deliberation, he decided no; he had travelled through the Anauroch Desert and down into the Underdark carrying more, so there was no way he was tipping out some of his stuff just because this was Sigil.

He rolled his shoulders again, tried to settle his crossbow more comfortably. The quiver bristled nearby. He had a spare set of bolts wrapped and stowed in his pack, and two small knives hung from his belt. And he had spent the morning going over every spell he could possibly think of, and hating the fact that he did not quite know which ones would really work against demons. _Just throw anything at them, and see what's left standing. That's what Boss would say. _

Beside him, the mercenary walked with cat-quiet, elegant steps. He was built thinner than Goat-man, Deekin had noticed, slighter in the chest and shoulders, and probably shorter as well. But he moved in the same way, all muscle and predatory stillness. Today he smelled different, as well, that forge-fire scent overlaid with something else, something that reminded Deekin of rain on stones, or maybe the thick ends of the icicles in Old Master's cave in the middle of winter. He smelled not unlike Goat-man had in Cania, but back then Deekin supposed the snow and the cold was clinging to him.

Just before he had time to reflect on the idea that maybe tieflings smelled like that when they were worried, or too alert, or preparing for something awful, he ploughed into the back of Dakesh's leg. "Oh…sorry."

The mercenary looked down at him, eyebrows raised. "Day-dreaming gets you killed in this city."

"Oh, big threat. Deekin lived with Old Master for years, and he give big threats all the time. Never once went through with them. Old Master be called Tymofarrar."

"Right. And was Tymofarrar a human, like Boss?"

"Nope. Tymofarrar be white dragon."

Dakesh opened his mouth, seemed to want to say something, but then shook his head and turned away. Deekin shrugged and followed him again, watching the play of his cape. His gaze skipped up, and to the mercenary's gently pointed ears, visible now through the dark fall of his hair. One of these days, he decided, he was going to ask someone why tieflings had pointed ears but were not elves. Thinking about it, he realized he knew far too little about tieflings and their similarities and differences.

"Dakesh?"

"Hmm?"

"Why you nots have a tail?"

The mercenary stopped again. "Excuse me?"

Deekin shrugged, noticed that they had halted in the middle of a busy street. On both sides, people swarmed past, and warmth and the smell of roasted meat drifted from open tavern doors. "Just wondering. You is a tiefling, yes?"

"Yes," Dakesh said warily. "What's your point?"

"Well, Goat-man has a tail. And horns."

"Not all tieflings have tails or horns." He stepped to one side while an over-laden wagon rumbled past. "I don't really know why. Maybe it depends on our ancestry."

"What yours be?"

"My ancestry?" Dakesh blinked slowly. "I don't know."

"Well, that not be very helpful." Deekin hurried to keep up as the mercenary set off again, walking with wide, fast strides. "Goat-man be part cambion."

"Well, good for him."

"Innkeeper didn't know ancestry either. Why not?"

"Why exactly are you asking me?" Dakesh paused, surveyed the street ahead, the way it sloped sharply up before knifing between leaning buildings. "I expect your friend knows his ancestry because there was someone around to tell him."

"Goat-man's mother."

"Well, there you go."

Deekin was tempted to ask another question, but the mercenary was scanning the street again, and his poise had tightened. When the mercenary gripped the collar of his tunic and marched him across the street, he did not complain, only picked up his pace. They hurried up the hill, and down the far side, to where the street split into three. Dakesh steered him down the narrowest one, between leaning walls that were lined with dripping gables. The cobbles were damp and slippery here, and the roofs seemed to brush against each other over the alleyway.

Deekin risked a quick look behind them, and saw nothing. "What you think you see?"

"Not sure." Dakesh stopped, raked a hand through his hair and sighed. "That's the problem with this place. I could've seen an angry merchant, an assassin on his way to do today's job, or someone out to stick my head on a spike. Usually it's best to assume the latter."

Deekin nodded his agreement. Boss would have agreed with that, too, and sometimes had even gone so far as to threaten whoever it was that looked shady, just in case. Of course, when she had tried to threaten Ashara, the slave trader, he had just laughed and reminded her that the slave collars would keep any threatening purely verbal. Still, he had fed them, and had not hurt them, and had let them go once they did what he asked.

"Quietly down here," Dakesh said from some point above him.

Deekin looked up, saw the alleyway plunging down, taking in smooth-worn steps, an archway, and what looked to be a narrow length of street between cramped walls. There seemed to be no one around, but he did not like their chances if they were ambushed – there was nowhere to turn, or move, and they would be turned into targets all too easily. Still, he had no other choice, so he trailed after the mercenary. They moved in silence, Deekin walking with his crossbow unslung and primed. The alleyway wove between the walls, and Deekin could see sharp towers above. The air was curiously still here, and smelled of mildew and not much else. Beneath his feet, the cobbles were sloping down again, slowly and steadily slanting deeper beneath the high walls. He remembered Dakesh mentioning tunnels that would take them the rest of the way across the city. He glanced up at the mercenary and murmured, "This be way to the tunnels?"

Dakesh nodded. "Not far."

Another hour or so of the narrow alleyway, and then the ground dropped away, revealing uneven, small steps. Deekin hopped down awkwardly, noticed Dakesh's lithe confidence as he prowled down. Underfoot had turned uneven and slightly mushy, reminding Deekin of half-melted ice crusting over grass and soil. On both sides, the walls rose and met, with nothing but blackness beneath.

Dakesh halted, slowly drew his sword. The blade was odd-looking, Deekin reckoned, almost drow-like with its slenderness and its spiraling decorations. It looked light, and he wondered about the strange, twisting designs that were carved into the hilt. "Got any small light spells handy?"

Deekin held out his hand, and a tiny star of light formed over his palm. "This be alright?"

"Perfect. Send it along just behind me. I don't want to get it straight in my eyes."

Understanding, Deekin let the magelight bob along between them. He followed Dakesh into the darkness, and felt his hackles rise. There was something old and fetid and just _plain wrong_ about the shadows down here. The walls threw back every soft sound, every step he or the mercenary made, every breath they took, every slight jangle of a buckle or creak of leather. The magelight showed him curving walls thick with dripping moss, and mud and slimy puddles.

"Dakesh?" He had meant to whisper, but the mercenary's name came out jarringly loud.

"Yes?" The mercenary paused, his entire frame taut, head tipped to one side as if he was listening for something.

"Is it like this all the way?"

He nodded. "All the way. Sorry."

"It be alright." But it was certainly not alright, and Deekin could feel his skin crawling. Under his feet, he could feel something that gave too much, and he had no desire to look down and see it properly. He had lived in caves much of his life, and he had gone to the Underdark with Boss, and seen his share of tunnels and echoing caverns. _Why then was he so unsettled by this tunnel? Was it the smell, the air, the darkness? The thought of Azraleth's tower, waiting somewhere?_

Deekin shook himself, gripped his crossbow tighter, and carried on. One careful step at a time, keeping his eyes pinned on Dakesh's back. He could hear the mercenary's breathing quicken, and the idea that he might be as unsettled as Deekin made Deekin feel a little better. He looked briefly back over his shoulder, and saw the mouth of tunnel, a small half-circle of pale light, somewhere behind him.

Deekin knew he had probably blundered into worse things in his time, but he had always had Boss with him. _Except that first time_, he remembered. That time he had bolted with the broken tower statue, seizing some ragged chance to get away from Old Master. Still, terrifying as that night had been, it had not included creeping down some dismal, damp, endless tunnel that made Deekin think of dead things.

Dakesh stopped, sword raised and head tilted away from the light. Cut into silhouette, his profile looked sharp and angular and not very human. Deekin wanted to ask why he had stopped, but the mercenary raised his free hand and motioned for silence.

The air pushed against Deekin's mouth, feeling somehow solid. He closed his eyes, listening, and his heart dropped in his chest when he thought he heard something. _Something scraping on the stone. Which means that whatever it is, it's not walking on the ground, it's on the walls……_

"Deekin! More light!" Dakesh vaulted past him, sword flickering.

Deekin marshaled his thoughts, tried to ignore the horrible skittering above and behind him. The magelight blossomed, throwing the walls and Dakesh's shoulder and sword into sharp relief. Deekin looked past the mercenary, and saw something clinging to the wall. There was the snicking sound of a blade being unsheathed, and then the dark figure peeled away from the stone and dropped. Landed cat-like in front of the mercenary and launched at him.

Dakesh met the figure's attack head-on, sword held low. The blade sliced up, crashed against the two curved daggers that had appeared in the figure's gloved hands. Deekin hopped frantically, trying to aim for a clear shot over the mercenary's shoulder. But he was moving too quickly, and the tunnel was cramped, and Deekin did not know his fighting style well enough to risk it. With Boss it was simple; he knew how she fought, what she tended to do, depending on who she was trying to kill.

The mercenary spun, kicked the figure's ankles out from under it. But instead of falling, or stumbling, the figure merely leaped back, regained its footing. It came on again, pushing forward horribly fast. The curved daggers rang against Dakesh's sword, frenzied and brutal. One slashed past his face. Another swept past his shoulder.

Deekin snapped out one of Boss's favourite obscenities, and called up a bright coil of energy. He waited until the mercenary had yanked away from the figure, and yelled, "Dakesh! _Duck!_"

The mercenary dropped almost prone, and Deekin was almost surprised he had been obeyed. Still, he had no time to consider such things, so he launched the spitting tangle of white light over the mercenary, and watched with a certain amount of satisfaction as it burrowed into the figure's chest.

The figure lurched back, and one of the daggers dropped from its hand. It clawed desperately at its chest, and Deekin smelled burning flesh. He hated lightning spells in close quarters, mainly because of the stink, but he had to admit that they were cruelly effective.

Dakesh uncoiled up to his feet again, and brought his sword round. The blade sliced through the figure's neck, cleanly decapitating it. Pale in the magelight, the mercenary turned and grinned. "Good aim."

Deekin shrugged self-consciously. "Deekin likes to help."

"Appreciated."

Dakesh looked like he wanted to say something else, but something silver and thin flashed out of the darkness. Deekin stared at it, not quite sure what he was looking at. The mercenary's hands came down on his shoulders, roughly shoving him to one side. A dagger whipped past, biting into the ground behind.

Deekin stumbled to his feet, saw two more figures, one still clinging to the curve of the wall, the other inches from the mercenary. This time, the mercenary attacked first, using his shoulder to push the figure back. He rammed an elbow against its chest, and then the flat of his sword smacked across its shoulders. When he staggered, he raked the blade across its stomach and stepped back.

And stared, horrified, when the figure kept on going. Behind him, trying to see either through his knees or past his hip, Deekin shuddered. Blood gushed from the ugly wound in the figure's gut, but it threw itself at the mercenary again. Dakesh twisted away, slammed the hilt of his sword against its head. When it swayed again, he flipped the sword around and drove it all the way through the figure's chest.

The figure keened, a high, piercing noise that set Deekin's teeth on edge. He tried not to watch as it fell, and Dakesh had to wrestle his sword out of its ribcage. When the blade caught on some edge of bone, the other figure dropped from the wall. One dagger flashed up, spinning between thin fingers before it was thrown.

"Dakesh!"

The mercenary yanked his sword clear and threw himself to one side. The dagger bit across the top of his left shoulder, and he snarled out a curse that Deekin was sure even Boss would be impressed with. Another dagger followed, and this one the mercenary knocked out of the air with his sword. But then the figure closed the distance between them, and Deekin could see that Dakesh had run out of room. He was holding his sword too close to himself, and for all that he was moving fluidly and fast, he simply did not have enough space.

Deekin remembered Boss telling him once that realizing her sword was too long for the fight she was in had been one of the most terrifying moments of her training at Hilltop. Deekin had never seen Goat-man encounter the same problem, but then again, Goat-man tended to just crash full-force into anyone who attacked him, and Deekin did not want to even guess how much he weighed, armour and flail and muscle and all.

Dakesh jerked his sword aside, and punched the figure squarely in the throat. It shuddered and stumbled back, but again, did not fall, _did not even raise its hands to its throat. _Deekin had been hit in the throat before, and he could not imagine what kind of creature could just stand there and take it.

The figure leaped forward again. A solid kick landed against Dakesh's sword arm, but the mercenary held on, dragged his blade around again. The hilt thumped against the figure's side. Serpent-like, the figure wriggled past the sword, and the dagger carved through the air, an inch in front of Dakesh's neck. The mercenary backed up, and the figure lashed out again, sweeping a powerful kick against Dakesh's ankles.

The mercenary stumbled, and another kick knocked his feet out from under him. Somehow he kept his sword up and pointed at the figure, even as he hit the ground hard. Deekin saw the figure gather itself to jump at the mercenary again, so he shouted, "Stay down!"

A heartbeat later, and another lightning spell leaped from his hand. Shedding bright sparks, it roared over the mercenary and ploughed into the figure. Dakesh tried to move, to push up with his sword, but the spell was burning too hot and too close, and Deekin saw him flinch away.

The figure reared up, another dagger bright and sharp and curving down towards the mercenary. Deekin drew in a deep breath, hoped that it would still work, and prayed that the mercenary would stay flat on the ground. He threw himself forward, and felt the telltale warmth somewhere in his chest. Then there was the searing, not-quite-uncomfortable heat in his mouth, and the distinctly odd feeling of the fire as it jetted past his teeth.

The flames curled across the figure's outstretched hands, licking up its arms. Deekin kept breathing and hoped he would not run out of breath before the figure finally succumbed. He heard the mercenary's startled gasp, and then the sound of him rolling away. The figure screeched, the noise like tearing metal, and finally collapsed. The flames died, leaving pluming smoke and the sickening smell of cooked flesh.

Deekin swallowed, still tasting heat. He turned in time to see Dakesh standing, dark eyes wide. For a long moment, the mercenary just stared at him. Eventually, he coughed, and said, "You can breathe fire."

"Yep." Deekin nodded cheerfully. "Deekin told demon that, remember?"

"Well, yes, but I thought you were bluffing."

"Nope. Deekin learn long ago the value of not bluffing from Boss. Well, Boss _was_ bluffing at time, and it not go very well, so now Deekin figure it best not to bluff much. Unless Deekin can actually follow through."

Dakesh stared at the crumpled, smoking corpse. "You're pretty useful, when it comes to it."

Deekin shrugged. "Deekin just doing Deekin's job." He peered up at the mercenary, saw blood on his shoulder. "Need healing potion?"

Dakesh touched his left hand to the gash and shook his head. "No. It just clipped me."

"Put bandage on, then. No point tearing it wider." Deekin unslung his pack, started rummaging around. "Deekin know how to wrap bandage on shoulder without making fighting difficult. Even easier because it not your sword arm."

Dakesh grunted, but then he knelt so Deekin could examine the cut. It was shallow, but bleeding freely, and Deekin noticed the mercenary's mouth tighten when he peeled the fabric of his shirt and tunic back from it. Briskly, he cleaned most of the blood away, and pressed a cut bandage against it. He knotted the bandage just in front of the joint where Dakesh's shoulder met the top of his arm, small enough so the mercenary could still move easily.

Deekin hefted his pack again, and saw the mercenary watching him oddly. "What?"

"Nothing." Dakesh rolled his shoulder. "Well, thanks."

Deekin grinned. "Welcome."

"Come on. We've a way to go yet, and gods know what else is in these tunnels."

Sword drawn, the mercenary led the way again, guiding them both away from the dead figures. Deekin wondered briefly what they were, what they might have looked like under those gloves and hoods and dark clothes, but then he remembered the sharp, high noises they made when they died, and decided he would rather not know. So, with the magelight floating between them, he followed Dakesh further into the darkness.


	18. Chapter 18

_Apologies for the delay in posting - the site was being rather weird for me for the past three days. Anyway, usual disclaimer applies, and a huge thank-you to everyone who's following this. Reviews are always welcome. _

_**Chapter Eighteen – The Fortress**_

Valen drifted in that terrible, unmoored place between sleep and waking. He was no longer sure when the cambion was really in the room with him, or when that slow, persuasive voice had wormed into his dreams. At least once, now, he had passed out – half meaning to, half wanting to, while the cambion shouted and laughed and stroked his back, twining long fingers across his skin, playing with the tears in his shirt.

He shook himself, felt the dull ache in his wrists and shoulders, and supposed he was awake. The torchlight stabbed at his eyes, and he wished desperately for the darkness. But even sleep betrayed him there; his dreams seemed grey, and unsteady, and every time he woke, the light was there again. Even Jaiyan eluded him in dreams. He had tried to imagine her as she had been, smiling and loving him and kept safe. But whenever he did dream of her, he saw her only as she was, chained to some wall somewhere too near, while the cambion did things that Valen was too afraid to give words to.

He had tried counting days by the number of meager meals he was getting, and some while ago had become hopelessly confused. There had been those two other days when the cambion had forbidden him food, then that day where they had fed him twice. Or maybe the day had just blurred past, and he had not noticed. He was no longer sure.

"Valen, you're not listening to me."

The cambion was talking to him again, his shadow black across the wall and his claws cupping Valen's chin. Valen considered asking him why exactly he should bother, and then telling him what he could go and do about it, but the words seemed to catch in his throat.

"Gods above, tiefling. You look pathetic." The claws trailed up, digging against his cheek. "Seems to me that maybe I should just let you rot in here."

Valen swallowed painfully. "What else did you have planned for me?"

"Oh, I thought I might let you pay back the taking of Grimash't's life."

"How would I do that?"

"One death at a time, taken by you, on a battlefield of my choosing, for however long it might take, until your death."

Valen's head felt heavy, tight at the temples and the base of his neck. "And if I were to survive?"

The cambion laughed. "You wouldn't, I promise you."

Valen leaned his forehead against the wall. The rage still swirled around in his chest, and only some two days ago – he thought – he had thrown himself recklessly at the cambion again, and received nothing for his trouble but a longer round with the lash. But today he was exhausted, and his mind was treacherous and flighty, and he seemed unable to keep his thoughts together.

"You can feel it, can't you?" The cambion's hand tracked up to the back of his neck, winding through his hair. "The anger. All that hatred. The way you want to kill something. The way you need to kill something." When he said nothing, the cambion murmured, "It's in your blood, Valen. That cursed cambion blood. You want to kill, and you'll do it well, like you always did."

_Battlefields strewn with the dead. The air thick with the stink of blood. The weight of the flail in his hand. His armour splashed red and filthy. The jarring way he would snap back into himself, and see what he had done. And those terrible moments when he saw, and did not care. _

"It's in your blood, Valen," the cambion said again. Hot breath brushed against Valen's ear as he leaned in closer. "You can't run from it, no more than you could the night sky."

Valen jerked his head away, clenched his teeth when the cambion casually raked sharp claws across his shoulder. "No," he said, thickly. He remembered a stone floor, and the cold air of the Reaper's realm, and the way Jaiyan's face had twisted in concentration when she spoke his True Name. _She had banished the infernal taint from his blood, hadn't she? _

"No," he managed again. It was their secret, something only he and Jaiyan and Deekin and the Reaper knew. _Don't say anything. Don't tell him. _But the cambion's face was too close to his own again, and he wanted to find Jaiyan and feel her pressed against him again, and the words spilled out, tumbling and confused. "No. You could break my spirit or tear me in half, and I would not become that…that…what I was. That monster."

The cambion laughed. His fingers snarled in Valen's hair, wrenched his head back, baring his throat. "Oh, indeed? Such trust in your own strength? You're nearly broken, treasure. And then you're mine."

_Treasure_. Valen growled and yanked away, but the cambion held him in place, gently stroking the outside of his claws up and down the length of his throat. "I…no. No." He was vaguely aware that he kept repeating the word, again and again. _As if saying it more makes it more true. _"No. The Reaper…"

"The Reaper?"

"The Reaper in his realm in Cania…" His voice was hitching, and he tried to turn away. But the cambion held him, claws pressed into his throat. "No. I will not…become what I was."

"And why not?"

_Don't say it. Don't tell him. _"Because I can't."

"Indeed?" The claws slid up, pushing against the soft skin beneath the line of his jaw. "And why not?"

"I can't. There was…I can't."

The cambion's head loomed in front of him, lips turned up in a smile. "Can't, Valen? Something you can't say? Or shouldn't say?"

Valen wrenched away, barely felt it when the claws cut into him. "No, I…stop. Please…can't. She…I can't."

"Valen," the cambion said, entirely serious and horribly sincere. "You have a simple choice at this point. It seems you've been keeping something from me, treasure."

"_You've been keeping something from me, treasure."_ The words echoed, and he heard Grimash't's disbelieving laugh again. _"You've been bedding that whore of a girl, haven't you? The pretty one. Black hair, tall, alabaster skin. You know the one I mean. You've gone red as your hair, treasure. Of course you know the one I mean." _

"No," he said again.

"You can tell me," the cambion continued. "Or I can go to your woman, and I can pry it out of her."

Something cold jolted through him. "No, I…don't."

"You're not persuading me, treasure."

"_You are mine, treasure, and I will not share you. You kill for me and you are mine, and that is all."_

"It's…nothing. Nothing she knows."

"Indeed." The cambion's laugh reached his ears, silken and amused. The hand trailed over the back of his head again. "I remain unconvinced."

"_Your life is mine," Grimash't said. "Your life, and every kill you make in my name, and all the blood you shed for me…it's all mine, Valen. But she is not yours, treasure. You have nothing, except me." _

"Valen?"

He lifted his head, tried to hear through the roaring in his ears. "I don't…don't touch her. Don't hurt her."

The cambion laughed. "You choose to keep secrets, and you make demands of me? I think not, treasure. I'll go and talk to her, I think, and then we'll see what secret you're hiding."

The cambion turned away from him at last, and instead of relief, all he felt was the rage. Blank, hot and blinding. He was screaming, he realised, screaming hard enough that his mouth and throat hurt. At some point the door closed, and he sank down against the wall. Everything seemed to be swirling around him, and the pulse in his head thumped. He might have fallen into uncertain dreams, but he was not sure, even though he stood opposite Grimash't again, and snarled that, no matter how many he killed for his master, his soul remained his own.

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Deekin sat huddled on a damp rock and reflected that Sigil, while wondrous and magical and quite frankly unsettling, was also dark and dismal and wet, at least in the part of Sigil in which he sat right now. The tunnels had stretched on through many hours of walking – more than a day, if he had guessed right. Strange creatures occasionally attacked them, leaping out of the darkness and into his magelight, and he and the mercenary cut them down.

_Just another obstacle,_ Deekin thought grimly. _Something else to deal with on the way to getting Boss back. _

Still, they had spent enough time in the darkness that surely, _surely_, the demon's fortress had to be somewhere close. Proving Deekin right, the mercenary had called a halt and ordered the kobold to eat and rest. Following that came the warning, along with a stern expression and something very like apprehension in the mercenary's eyes.

"Not much further to go." Dakesh swept his hair back over his collar, wincing when his fingers caught against something damp and dripping. "When we clear the tunnel, you'll stay behind me, and you'll do exactly as I say. Yes?"

"Yes." Deekin studied the mercenary a moment longer, noticed the new bruises that crossed one cheekbone, and the scuff marks on his bracers. "Dakesh?"

The mercenary twisted out of his pose near the curving wall. "Yes?"

"Deekin wonders…"

"Yes?"

"Why you be doing this?"

Dakesh grinned. "For the gold."

Deekin snorted. "Can't just be the gold. Deekin not stupid."

"I know." The mercenary cast another wary glance down the tunnel before joining him. "Look, it's very simple. This cambion is a slaver."

Deekin blinked innocuously. "So?"

"So, for every slave he has helped parcel off to the Blood Wars, I think he deserves a knife in his throat, don't you?"

There was something simmering under the mercenary's voice, something that reminded Deekin again of Goat-man, or maybe Boss when she and Deekin had realised just what it was that Ashara the trader traded in.

"Besides," Dakesh said roughly, "Your tiefling friend isn't the only one who's lost years to the Blood Wars."

Deekin fell silent then, because he had seen Cania, and he remembered the blank hatred and blood in the snow, and well, what could he say, really? The darkness of the tunnel pressed in around his tiny magelight, and every time he breathed in, he tasted mildew and water. His feet prickled inside his boots, and he wanted to be off, and out of this tunnel, and into the tower and finding Boss. But Dakesh had ordered him to stop and rest, and he knew that he should.

_And what exactly was waiting in that tower? _Deekin tried to push that thought aside. He was here for Boss and Goat-man, and getting into that tower meant getting them back. _If they were still alive_. Deekin shoved _that_ thought aside as well. The mercenary seemed to think they might be still alive, so Deekin hoped fiercely that he was right.

He did not sleep, but he did manage to relax a little, curled against the stone. Dakesh stayed standing, his dark eyes fixed on the tunnel walls, or the solid darkness ahead. Deekin found himself watching the mercenary, and wondering what he might do if something happened to the mercenary. _Go on,_ he thought grimly. _Go on and find Boss. What else is to be done?_

"Deekin?"

Dakesh's head turned as he spoke, and the magelight spilled across the hard planes of his face. He looked tired, very tired, Deekin noticed, and wondered briefly if he should demand that the mercenary rest a while. But that would mean wasting more time, and gods knew what was happening to Boss, so Deekin only said, "Yes?"

"Are you ready?"

He settled the weight of his crossbow over his shoulder and nodded. His heart seemed to be slamming against his ribs, and his stomach fluttered. "Yes," he managed. "Deekin thinks so."

Dakesh barked out a laugh that did not sound all that amused. "Alright. Soon as you see the shadows lifting, even the slightest, you kill that magelight, alright?"

Deekin nodded again.

"And prime that crossbow."

"Deekin know what to do!"

Dakesh arched an eyebrow. "I'm sure. I just don't want you skewered the instant we get out of here. That would put me in a most awkward position."

"Deekin feel _so_ cared about." He thought he heard the mercenary laugh again, but then he was moving forward again, all cat-like and almost silent. Deekin followed, motioning his magelight closer. The tiny point of light fluttered down into his hand, and he remembered suddenly how surprised he had been when he had first tried to cast a light spell, and it had worked. He had read about them in an old book in Old Master's cave, and thought they looked pretty. The first one he had cast had been unwieldy and too big, and had shed sparks all over the floor.

He threw a quick glance around the side of the mercenary's leg, and saw that, yes, the darkness was becoming greyness up ahead. _That meant the tunnel was ending, and he was getting closer to Boss and Goat-man……and the demon who was keeping them._ Deekin swallowed and quelled the magelight. Darkness rushed in, and he almost gasped. _It's only gloomy_, he thought desperately. _Just seems darker because there was the light before. _

Dakesh paused in front of him, and he saw the mercenary's stance tighten. There would be steps, the mercenary had said some hours ago. Steps leading up to an alleyway that would be guarded, Dakesh was certain. An alleyway that snaked through warehouses where weapons and people and foodstores were kept. Deekin had asked about why the tunnels were left open, and Dakesh had told him that it must be worth the occasional undesirable crawling through them, since the slavers could in turn use them to transport goods who might otherwise draw attention in the streets above.

The mercenary paused, sword drawn, and looked back over his shoulder at Deekin. In response, Deekin unslung his crossbow. When the mercenary nodded, they moved on again, Deekin noticing how the ground was drier here, the cobbles less thick with muck, and the air moving against his face. The greyness ahead was brighter, resolving into a stone arch, and smooth steps that led up into pale light. He squinted past Dakesh again, and saw the black outline of someone standing near the wall. A guard, he realised, standing on the fourth step up, thumbs hooked in his belt and back half turned away from the tunnel. Dakesh gestured, and Deekin eased around him. He lifted the crossbow, sighted. The bolt flew and punched into the guard's lower back, toppling him. He hit the steps and rolled, and Deekin heard shouting and running footsteps.

Dakesh jerked his head in the direction of the steps, and Deekin understood. Anyone coming down into the tunnel would be framed against the light beyond, and hopelessly easy targets. Three guards tried it, and Deekin noted with a fierce kind of satisfaction that they all went down quickly. After the third one fell, Deekin heard more shouting, voices raised in anger. Something about damned monsters in the tunnels again, and why were they so bold today?

Dakesh was edging closer to the steps, eyes on the light above. Deekin followed, crossbow primed. Footsteps hit the stone higher up, and stopped. Praying that the guards did not have bows with them, Deekin watched as Dakesh launched up the steps. He heard cries of surprise, and a choked-off, rattling scream. Something heavy hit the ground. Another yelled challenge was met with the crack of steel against mail.

Deekin inched up to the steps, carefully wove past the dead guards. No arrows whipped out to pin him, so he carried on. His fingers were shaking around his crossbow, so he tightened his grip. A quick glance to the left showed him Dakesh, rolling to one side while he fended off three guards. Deekin lined up a quick shot, and one of them dropped, skewered through the neck. The mercenary swung around, crashed his opponent's sword out of the way. Followed up, plunging his blade hilt-deep in the guard's chest. Deekin hopped up the last step, aimed at the last guard. The bolt rang out, slammed into the guard's shoulder. Dakesh stepped to one side, let the man fall, and drove his sword into his back. Coldly efficient, he checked the other guards before motioning Deekin across the alleyway.

Tall wooden buildings rose on both sides, and Deekin smelled treated leather and roasting meat and the tang of rust. Without speaking, he followed Dakesh around the corner of the warehouse, and down the weaving alleyway. They ran into another trio of guards at the next corner, and Dakesh mowed through them. Deekin finished the last one off with a hastily thrown lightning spell.

Every time they hurried between the warehouses, Deekin saw the spikes and walls of the fortress beyond. Trailing Dakesh at a careful run, he did not have the time to stop and study it, but he had seen high towers, and walls with crenulations, and dark stone. The place looked bigger than the Valsharess' fortress, bigger even that the biggest tower in Undrentide. Deekin supposed that, had he had time to think about it, he would be panicking about now. But there was too much to think about, what with chasing after Dakesh and looking out for more guards, and trying to suppress the knot of excitement that had lodged in his belly.

Another quartet of guards slowed their progress further along, and yet more waited in the alcove in front of a huge warehouse. They fell beneath a barrage of fire spells, with the last three helped along by Dakesh's sword. The mercenary was breathing hard, and blood snaked down from a wide cut on his jaw where the tip of a sword had snapped past his guard. More blood welled around a thin gash on his side, but he refused the healing potion Deekin shook at him.

"No time," he said. "Longer it takes us to find somewhere safe, more chance there is that damn cambion will send every soldier he has at us."

Deekin nodded and hurried after him, sprinting over dried mud and past empty wagons. Dakesh had told him their best bet for the first gate was one of the smaller guard towers, away from the doors themselves. When Deekin had asked how they were going to get inside, the mercenary had laughed and said he hoped the kobold knew how to climb a rope. Well, he did, and he was quite good at it, but he did not fancy hanging down the side of a tower while there might be men on the ground with bows. Still, if there was no other way, he supposed it would have to do.

Dakesh ducked around the side of a warehouse and paused. Ahead, the ground was open and gouged with wheel-marks, and Deekin could see the gates, rising high and dark and most firmly closed. The mercenary checked behind them, and then led Deekin across to the walls. Another quick look showed only the warehouses, and the rippling sky above.

They had been careful, Deekin knew, and had dragged the dead guards around corners or into doorways, so whoever might be watching from the gatehouse walls might think little amiss. _That said_, he thought, _casting spells and killing people makes a lot of noise. _Someone _must have heard it by now._

Dakesh slid along the wall, Deekin behind him, until a small turret jutted out overhead. The mercenary gestured to Deekin to turn around, and rummaged around in Deekin's pack. He emerged with the rope and grappling hook, and Deekin found himself wondering how much it would hurt if the rope was shot in half and he fell. Still, he waited, nerves jangling, while the mercenary judged the distance. His first attempt fell short, the grappling hook thumping back down onto the ground.

The air around him was silent, and Deekin wondered why. _Have they already heard us? Are they going to shoot us when we climb? Will they be waiting at the top? _The grappling hook thunked into place over the crenulations, and Dakesh gave the rope a sharp tug.

"Alright. I'll go first."

"No," Deekin said. "Deekin be lighter. Get up quicker."

Dakesh scowled. "Alright," he allowed. "But damn it, if you fall, I'm not coming back for you."

Deekin grinned and grasped the end of the rope. "Likewise."

He hauled himself up onto the rope, gave himself a moment while he felt the weight of his pack and the way the rope strained against his hands. Bracing his feet against the wall, Deekin walked himself up the rope, trying not to think about the increasingly big drop beneath him. The ends of his wings trailed against the stone, and he could see the crenulations looming above. A hasty glance down showed him the top of Dakesh's dark head, and the mercenary's hands wrapped around the rope.

_Boss is in here somewhere. Get up that rope!_ He forced himself to move, hand over hand, dragging himself higher up the wall. He figured he was probably high enough by now that, even should some enthusiastic guard shoot him, he would be dead the instant he hit the ground in any case.

His heels kicked against the stone, and then he was heaving himself between the crenulations and calling a fire spell. He dropped onto the walkway on the other side and crouched down. A nervous look in both directions showed only grey stone, and the guard tower, rising against the sky. He kept the spell burning above his palm and listened, but he could hear little beyond the scraping sound of Dakesh climbing. The mercenary appeared through the crenulations, and Deekin's heart flipped over in relief.

Not that he ever really thought the mercenary would fall, or be shot, or be seen, but it was still good to see him whole and breathing.

Dakesh scrambled onto the walkway, heaved the rope up behind him. While he looped the rope, he muttered, "Too quiet. I don't like it." Deekin silently agreed. He was about to speak, but the mercenary jerked his chin in the direction of the guard tower. "Can you sing that door open?"

"Course Deekin can." Crossbow in one hand, Deekin approached the door. He whispered the right words, and the door snicked open.

A crossbow bolt slashed out, and Deekin flung himself to one side. He heard Dakesh do the same behind him. Another two bolts launched through the doorway. Pressed flat to the ground, Deekin called his fire spell again. A bolt bit into the stone above his head. He gritted his teeth, raised his hand, and sent the fireball roaring in through the door.

Heat hit him full in the face, and he closed his eyes against the sudden flare. The smell of burning flesh followed, along with someone sobbing. Deekin leaned back against the wall, eyes still shut. Waited while Dakesh stalked into the guard tower, sword drawn. He heard the horrible, steely slithering sound as the mercenary finished the guards off.

Not wanting to, Deekin stepped over the threshold. The acrid tang of magic assailed him. He looked up, saw Dakesh sheathing his sword. "Alright?" the mercenary asked.

Deekin nodded, gulped down a breath that was thick with dust and blood. "Yep. Deekin definitely be better than when Deekin helped drow storm Valsharess' fortress."

Dakesh snorted, closed the door. "Why?"

Deekin shrugged. His heartbeat was finally slowing down, and he uncurled his fingers. "Well, that time, Deekin be dead at this point."

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The door crashed open, startling Jaiyan awake. She turned, winced when she felt the muscles cramping all along her calves. She stretched her legs out, and looked up, expecting to see Kaenor with today's excuse for a meal. Instead, the cambion prowled in, wings stiff and flared. She saw the way his fists were clenched, and how his scarlet eyes were narrowed, and her mouth went dry.

"You. Girl. Stand up."

The words were barked out and clipped. So different from his usual oily and urbane tone, and Jaiyan wondered why. Standing, she barely came halfway up his chest, and he was equally solid across. Not for the first time, she tried to imagine how Valen's mother had survived long enough to even fall pregnant, a whore made to entertain customers who were demons. She arrived at some vague notion that it must have hurt, and firmly decided not to think about it.

"Now. Your tiefling is hiding something. Something you both must know. Some secret." The cambion grinned at her, all fangs. "I want to know what it is."

"What?" She stared at him in open disbelief. "What in the Nine Hells are you talking about? What secret?"

The cambion grabbed the chains and pulled, so that she was horribly close to him. This near, she could see the ripples on his dark, scaled skin. "I don't know. I was hoping you could tell me."

"How can I tell you when I don't know what you're talking about?"

"You are brave, little one, aren't you?" He stroked the side of her face, held her chin. Tilted her head up so that she had to look directly into his red eyes.

_No,_ she thought desperately. _I'm petrified and just hoping he won't do anything because Valen's not here to see it. _"Comes with the profession," she managed.

"Think hard, little one. What secret might you and your tiefling share?"

"I don't know."

"Oh, don't lie to me." The claws dug in, and she felt something warm trickling down her chin. "Something you share with only him, along with your heart and your body. Something about the blood he carries."

_Oh. Gods. The True Names._ Jaiyan bit the inside of her cheek. _What's Valen said? What's he been made to say? _The idea of the cambion knowing either of their True Names made her skin turn cold. _If he knows we have them, he's going to beat them out of us, and then use them. _She recalled the sharp, prickling awareness that had shot through her when the Knower of Names had spoken. _It is you, _she had said, _bone and blood and soul, written in the dust of stars. _

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said, aware of the growing silence.

The cambion laughed. "You're still lying. You would know. He loves you to his very core, and who else would share such a secret, save his beloved?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she repeated slowly. "So drop the chain, back off and give me some breathing space."

Another laugh, this one bitten off when the cambion wrenched her forward. She was trapped between him and the wall, one huge hand cupped over her hip and the other still holding her head. "Think, little one. What do only you and he know? _What is it?_"

_He's huge. He could do anything he damn well pleases, and you wouldn't be able to do anything. _Jaiyan sucked down a deep breath. _Yes, but he's so angry he's likely to do it anyway. _She sent a quick prayer to Tymora, since she supposed no one else would be crazy enough to look out for an adventurer in such straits. "Why don't you go and ask him?"

The cambion growled. "If I ask him again, it will be with your bleeding and broken body on the floor in front of him."

"Oh, intimidation. Well done. Scaring an unarmed woman chained to a wall in a dungeon. Aren't you tough?" She was shaking all over, but words spilled out, venomous and mocking. _Drogan always did say you could never keep your mouth shut_. "Any other secrets you want to ask about? Valen's favourite colour, maybe? What exactly he can do with his tail? How he hates having the soles of his feet touched?"

The cambion slammed her back against the wall. "Your beloved tiefling seems to think he has escaped his blood. How would such a thing be possible?"

She glared through tumbled hair. "By turning around three times, dancing a jig, and sacrificing a chicken under the full moon."

One side of the cambion's mouth slid up. "Where do you get such audacity, little one?" His claws moved, settled around her throat. "Here you stand, your life in my hands, and still you defy me?"

"Some people want their last words to be heroic. Me, I just want them to be memorable. Or galling. Take your pick."

"I will ask you once more. What is this secret?"

There was rage seething in the cambion's voice, and Jaiyan felt cold sweat break out between her shoulders. _He might not kill you yet, but Gods, you know he can make you hurt_. "Secrets are meant for keeping, aren't they?"

He wrapped one hand around her wrists, hauled her feet off the floor. His other hand moved across from her hip, found her belt. "Oh, little one. If only you could imagine what I could do to you."

"Like what? Hacking three inches of my hair off? Speaking of which," she managed, despite the panic bubbling somewhere in her chest, "I've been meaning to ask. What did you intend to do with it? Steal it for a keepsake? Show it to Valen? Or did you merely not like the way I keep my hair?"

The cambion snarled. His hand slid down the inside of her leg, squeezing painfully. She tried to jerk away from him, but he held her in place, his claws digging in underneath her chin. His wings snapped wide, and she realised she could see nothing beyond him, and the anger in his face. The first, solid punch landed against her stomach, and he held her upright, did not let her double over.

Jaiyan spluttered, tried to breathe. Another blow crashed against the side of her head. When she sagged against the chains, seeing only white light, his hands slipped down under her thighs. A third punch left her nauseous and wondering if she was going to pass out. She thought she heard the door opening, and footsteps against stone, but the cambion's fist met her throat, and she was gasping for air again.

Her feet hit the ground roughly, and the chains jangled. Through splintering thoughts, she realised that the cambion _had_ stepped away from her. That the door _had_ opened, because he had turned around and was snarling at the smaller demon she could see in the doorway.

"I am _busy_," the cambion snapped.

"Yes, Master." The demon bowed its head nervously. "But…you are needed most urgently."

"Why?"

The other demon quailed. "The guards at the second gate, Master. They report…"

"They report _what?_"

"They report that someone is inside the first gate."

Jaiyan raised her head. _Someone? Someone not wanted?_

"Someone?" The cambion's wings furled, and he sighed. "How many?"

"They're not certain, Master."

"Do they know _anything_ useful?"

The smaller demon shuffled back against the doorframe. "Master, they ask only for help. If these intruders gain the third gate…"

"They won't." The cambion grinned over his shoulder. "They never do. Do not forget our conversation, little one. I still want an answer."

The door slammed, leaving Jaiyan alone with her thoughts and a throbbing, insistent pain down one side of her body. _Gods, that bastard can hit hard. _She straightened up, gingerly touched the new swelling on the side of her face. _Who the hells would be insane enough to attack this place? Someone that cambion's managed to offend? Rival demons? Someone with a raging death wish? _

……_Deekin…?_

She shook her head. No, that would be mad, even for the kobold. She knew he would look for her, because she would do the same for him. _But to get here, and find…what? Some fortress, impenetrable and dark and filled with demons? He's only a kobold. Should turn right around and go back and forget about her. _

But he would not, she knew, because she would not, in his place.

And even if the intruder was someone else, some demon or devil who had decided that the cambion's existence affronted them…well, he might be all the more distracted. _And less likely to come back any time soon and finish what he started._ Still, he had been riled by whatever it was Valen had said, and he seemed the type to hold a grudge. _He'll be back as soon as he can, you know he will. _

_So that leaves only one choice. _

Jaiyan sank back against the wall and waited. She rolled her hands against themselves, working the knot of tension out of her wrists. She checked the small, bleeding cuts on the underside of her jaw. Four healing potions remained in the satchel, untouched since the long gashes on back had closed over. They still hurt, and she was sure they would scar, but she did not want to trade the potions for the promise of unblemished skin.

By the time the door opened again, and Kaenor stepped inside, her nerves were about screaming. She did not stand, only smiled as he approached, carrying the tray. "Are you hungry?" she asked.

He nodded slowly. "I'm…sorry. About last time."

"It's alright," Jaiyan told him gently. "It must be difficult, having to be here."

He nodded again. His eyes were quick and darting, wide in his face. "Yes."

While he sat close to her, cross-legged, she let her gaze wander to his belt, to the keys she could see. She would have one chance, she knew. _One moment to get it right, or he'll bolt, and you'll be lucky if they throw food through the door for you after that. _

She picked up a chunk of bread, tore it in half. She held the larger portion out to him. When he moved to take it, she gathered herself and prayed that she would not have to hurt him too much. His fingers brushed hers, and she brought her other hand up, grabbing his wrist and yanking.

Kaenor cried out, tried to scrabble backwards. But he was painfully thin, and she doubted he had the strength or will left to resist properly. She drove an elbow into his stomach, then looped that arm around his neck, holding him in place. His heels kicked against the floor.

"I'm not going to kill you," Jaiyan hissed. "Stop struggling."

He went limp against her, his eyes rolling and white-ringed. She unhooked the keys from his belt. She could not leave him able to call an alarm, though. For all that he was weak and terrified, his very fear made him loyal to his master. Biting back the sudden rush of guilt, Jaiyan slammed her elbow against his temple. He slumped across her, and she wondered if she had made the right choice.

_You've let him live, and what do you think'll happen to him when Master gets his claws on him? And besides, if he wakes up and screams for help, you're in trouble. No……plenty of screaming goes on here. Like they'd listen to just another voice calling for help. What else are you going to do, kill him? Unconscious and unarmed? _

Grimly practical, she rolled him off her. She fumbled with the keys until she found one that fit the locks at her wrists. The shackles fell away, and she deliberated through a horrible moment before snapping them on Kaenor.

Jaiyan stood unsteadily, slung the satchel over her shoulder and eyed the door suspiciously. For all she knew, she could be marching out into a corridor full of demons. _Well, only one way to find out. _

She shouldered the door open, and saw only blank stone and flickering gloom. A cautious look around the edge of the door showed her a long passageway, marked with torches, and three other closed doors. She edged out, felt bare stone beneath her feet. The ceiling was low and curved, and dust clouded the air. She considered the merits of trying to unlock the other doors, but she knew from when the cambion had dragged her down here that wherever Valen was being kept, it was nowhere close.

Jaiyan advanced slowly down the corridor. She could hear nothing except the snapping of the torches, and the roar of her own heartbeat. _And footsteps_, she realised, _not far away and you'd better move or you'll get yourself killed before you even get out of this corridor_.

She looked up and around desperately, saw that the lintel of the door beside her was solid rock and protruded out. There would be little room up there, but she conceded that she had few other options, unless she wished to announce her escape to whatever it was that was walking down the corridor. Wincing as muscles in both legs stretched and pulled, she jumped and caught the edge of the jutting stone. She heaved herself up and onto the lintel and rolled onto her side. She was hunched up, knees drawn up to her stomach. The satchel dug into her back, but she did not dare move to shift it. The footsteps rang closer, and she heard metal ringing. There was a moment while she held her breath, and then she heard the jarring noise of a key in a lock. Footsteps again, and some muttered exchange, and the door closing again. She curled her fingernails against her palms, waited while the footsteps receded down the corridor again.

A quick glance over the edge proved the corridor to be empty. Jaiyan knew she should be jumping down, hurtling up the corridor and finding somewhere safer. _Safer, and with weapons. _But her heart was hammering, and sweat stung her eyes. _And you don't know what's up that corridor, and you don't know who might be waiting. _The stone was reassuringly cold through her shirt as she exhaled slowly, tried to calm herself, and wondered how exactly this was going to work.


	19. Chapter 19

_First off, a thank-you to Safedi13 - I'm glad you're enjoying the story, and I really hope you like where it goes. Also, the usual disclaimer applies - I own little except a few original characters. _

_**Chapter Nineteen – Meetings**_

Imloth paced across the floor again, wondered why he had not yet worn a trench into the stone, and snapped around on his heel. He had spent the better part of the day sitting poised, legs crossed and elbows on his knees, watching while the Seer prayed. _Still prayed_, he thought, part amused, part frustrated. The soldier in him wanted to be up and leaving, and diving into the unknown, and assailing whatever might lunge at him. The rational, thinking part of him accepted that more knowledge meant more chance of success. _Of finding them. _

Durnan had offered them use of one of the cellars, the small one near the room with the platform and the winch. After making sure Imloth was carrying enough weapons, the innkeeper had gruffly told him it would do no good for the decent people of Waterdeep to see anymore shrieking magic in their streets, so could they please keep the noise down and summon a small portal and not come out until Jaiyan was rescued?

He quartered the room again, spun and clenched his fists at his sides. His armour was fastened properly, and he could feel the reassuring weight of his quiver on the left side of his body, his sword on the right, and his bow strapped between the two. He had played with the leather ties in his hair, knotting them and untying them three times, until the Seer had pointedly asked him if he was done fussing, or if he would prefer that she simply braided the whole white length for him. His hands inched up to the ties near his temples again, and he dragged them away. _It's been too long since you saw any action_, he thought wryly. _A few scant months ago, an encounter with a raiding party would have barely woken a worry. _But that was before Mephistopheles, and venturing up into Waterdeep. _And now you're going to go to Sigil. _

Imloth sighed and sat. He leaned his chin on his hand and watched the Seer where she knelt, hands upraised, eyes half-closed. Her robes moved steadily and calmly as she breathed, and her face was peaceful. A faint corona of light clung to her, and the delicate web of some spell was strung between her hands. Imloth had tried offering a few prayers of his own, short and honest and none too eloquent, and had found himself with little else to do but wait.

Last night had granted the Seer another vision. While Imloth watched, the moonlight slanting into their room had turned fierce and painfully bright, and the Seer had seemed frozen, her hands palm up and her eyes open. Imloth had seen her in the grips of such visions before, in Lith My'athar, but this time, when Eilistraee left her, and she crumpled, he had darted forward, and caught her. Pressed her against him and held on when she shuddered.

_"_ _Are you alright?" Imloth kissed her throat, then her mouth. He murmured her name, and said again, "Are you alright?"_

_She twisted in his arms, her fingers digging against his tunic. Her legs were still buckling, and sweat coated her face. "Yes. Yes…I am." She leaned heavily against him for a moment longer. "Imloth…this will not be easy."_

_"I never expected it to be."_

_She buried her head against the crook of his shoulder. "Imloth. Listen to me. There is a fortress, and it is owned by a cambion, a slaver, whose name is Azraleth." _

_"Demons fall just as easy as anything else once they're cut down." He was remembering the pit fiends, and how they had toppled, taken down by spears and arrows. _

_"And this one has servants and soldiers." The Seer kissed his shoulder, then gently disentangled herself from him. Quietly, she told him of the fortress, and the gates and the towers, and the warren of tunnels and corridors and cells that must be used as a prison. _

_"Are they still alive?"_

_"Yes," she said. "For now. They are apart." _

_Imloth clicked his tongue against his teeth. "That won't make things any easier."_

_"No. But there was something else. Do you remember Deekin?"_

_He grinned. "The kobold? Of course." _

_"He's there."_

_"Imprisoned with them?"_

_She shook her head, and told him that the kobold had attempted the insane, and bartered himself a mercenary's help, and was already inside the walls. While she played with the loose ends of his hair, the Seer added, "They have weapons and food, and they are close to the second gate." _

That had been hours ago, and Imloth wondered if the little kobold was still alive. He stared up at the low ceiling again, and then at the blank walls, and clenched his fists over his knees. _Calm. Breathe. You're an archer and a soldier and you had patience beaten into you over a century ago. _But even so, he had heard tales of Sigil, and only a fool would not feel some flutter of apprehension, surely.

"Imloth?" The Seer's head turned, glossy white in the candlelight.

He was up and on his feet and clasping her hands in half a heartbeat. "What is it?"

"Are you ready?"

"Yes." He trailed his fingers down the side of her face. "Everything is prepared."

"Good. I am going to open a portal, a gateway…" A slight frown creased her forehead. "And I hope that it will take us directly into this fortress."

His soldier's training balked at that. "A portal? That'll…they'll hear it. Or sense it."

"Imloth," she said. "We are apparently about to storm a fortress, find Deekin, who has already broken in, and attempt a rescue. Do you think it will matter?"

He laughed. "I suppose not. Is there any other way of getting to Sigil?"

"None. So, if a portal it has to be, then I would prefer one that will land us inside." She glanced down at the floor. "This may take some time."

Imloth exhaled and stepped away from her again. His shoulders were taut beneath his armour, and he realised how ridiculously relaxed he must have become, living at The Yawning Portal. Barely a day would have fled past in the Underdark without him feeling like this. _This is not fear,_ he thought, _this is wariness. This is preparation. _

He had briefly considered asking if she might remain behind, to hold the portal open. _While you plunge through it and attempt to get through a demon's fortress on your own? Are you brave or stupid? She established Lith My'athar and defied the Valsharess, and you're more likely to need her help than the other way round. _

White light cracked out from her hands, and Imloth lifted his head in time to see it spiral up and out. He shielded his eyes as the light flared, painfully bright. He heard her murmur something soft and lilting, along with Eilistraee's name. The shadows wheeled again as more light jagged out. The air hummed, and he felt his skin prickle in response to whatever magic she had called. Hanging above the stone floor was a rippling web, and through it, he could see the wall beyond, blurred, and something else. _Something grey and indistinct, and very like the curved inside of a tower room. _

"There?" he asked, hushed.

She nodded. Her hands dropped, and the portal stayed, strung between them and trembling. "It will not hold for long," she said. "Imloth?"

"Yes?"

She looked up into his face, and shook her head. "Nothing." She leaned up, kissed him, slow and lingering. "Are you ready?"

For a long, uncomfortable moment, he stared into the portal, and into the slaver's fortress. "Yes."

The Seer slipped her fingers through his, and led him across to the flickering portal. The air was warm and felt somehow charged, like the sky had that time before the thunderstorm that had kept him up all night, watching it. Her fingers tightened on his, and then they were stepping through. The portal closed over him, crackling and hot, and his thoughts and his stomach turned upside down.

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Deekin curled himself back against the wall and tried to will his hands to stop their insistent, irritating trembling. Beside him, Dakesh was crouched down, his sword across one knee and his gaze pinned on the curve of the corridor in front of them. Behind them, the stone was black with scorch-marks, and the air stank of burned flesh and charred leather. Dead guards on the floor, and more in the stairwell further back.

After leaving the guard tower, progress had been slow. Each alcove and landing and doorway seemed to hide men in mail, and Deekin wondered again how many servants this cambion had. He was exhausted already, and he had seen the mercenary shaking as he pulled his sword out of yet another fallen opponent. But there was no place and no time to rest, and besides, the cambion probably already knew they were there. He remembered when the drow city Lith My'athar was attacked, and the drow that came out of the darkness seemed to be in their thousands. More and more of them, no matter how many fell off the walls or were cut down.

They had holed up near the second gate for a breather, and Deekin tried not to think about how the hells he was going to get Boss and Goat-man _out_ again. This place was a maze, and while the mercenary knew where he was going at the moment, they would both be lost once they crossed the third gate. _If they even got to the third gate,_ Deekin thought sourly. His shoulder was throbbing from where he had dived out of the way of a volley of crossbow bolts, and his left forearm was gashed, and, most offensively, the edge of one wing was looking frayed. Dakesh was in little better shape, but both of them were stubbornly hoarding the healing potions.

Deekin pressed his head back against the cool stone and breathed in. That sharp scent of rust and blood rushed into his mouth again, and he found himself wishing for open air and the clean smell of wind and rain. Even the musty, mildewed smell of Old Master's cave would be better, he decided. He closed his eyes and tried to push back the big knot of panic that was lodging in his chest.

Boss had once told him about panic, about how it was different from fear, and how everyone felt it at some point. Well, everyone except Goat-man, probably. He never seemed to panic in battle; he only got angrier. Boss had told him how she had panicked horribly when she and that big half-orc she trained with had been sent out after some group of bugbears who had been menacing traders near Hilltop. The big half-orc had gone down when a quarterstaff smacked into his head, and Boss had found herself alone with four furious bugbears.

_"It's a bit like drowning," _she had said. _"Well, maybe not, because I've never drowned, so I don't know what that feels like. But it feels the way I imagine drowning would. It comes up all over you, and you feel like you can't stop it, and you can't do anything." _

Deekin had asked what she had done to push it back, and kill the bugbears, and she had said, _"I figured panicking after I killed them would be just as good as panicking before. Except that way round, I got to survive."_

Deekin stared down at his hands. They were trembling less, and his heartbeat was steadier. _Panic later, and survive. Yes. That's all. Keep breathing, and panic later. _

He had come horribly close when he and the mercenary had approached the second gate. They had waited for the guard change, and when the gate had opened, he had shot the feet out from under the two men who emerged. Dakesh had charged out at the next two through the gate, and Deekin had followed. And suddenly it seemed that there were guards everywhere, running in behind them, and in front of them, swinging the gate open and giving them nowhere to hide. The air was whirring with crossbow bolts, and Deekin had nearly screamed when one whipped past his head.

Thinking on it, he was still not sure how he had gathered himself. Made himself turn around and heave a fireball into the courtyard behind them. How he had followed that up with a roaring wall of flame. He remembered turning, his heart leaping into his mouth when he saw Dakesh hard-pressed, backed up against the gate and surrounded. He thrown spells until his hands stung, and then lifted his crossbow. Afterwards, there had been no time to stop and breathe and check for wounds. The mercenary had grabbed his shoulder, dragged him through the gate, heaving it closed after them. Then there had been the headlong flight across another courtyard, before plunging back into the darkness of a corridor, and a swooping set of stairs that had led deeper into the fortress.

_To here_, he thought. Where the air stank of the dead, and they had who knew how much further to go.

Beside him, the mercenary straightened up. He looked down through eyes ringed with tired shadows. "Deekin?"

Deekin nodded. "Deekin be ready."

Dakesh smiled lopsidedly. "Good. Are you hurt?"

"Nothing bad."

"Good," the mercenary said again, quietly. He raked a hand through his hair and rolled his shoulders. "We've a way to go until the third gate."

"Deekin remembers. After that?"

"After that, we're playing it blind."

Deekin shrugged, then winced as he jarred his shoulder. "That be alright. Boss _always_ be doing that."

Dakesh snorted, but said nothing. He led Deekin down the corridor, pausing where the walls curved around. No crossbow bolts flew at them, and Deekin heard no running feet, no jangling of weapons. A quick look proved the corridor to be empty, so they pressed on, moving quietly and carefully. Deekin glanced up at the arching stone above and wondered how deep they were. He was a kobold, and he knew he should not be feeling anything approaching uneasy about being underground. He had been born in a cave and had spent years at a time without seeing proper daylight. Even the Underdark had not really fazed him, only what was lurking in it. But the layers and weight of the stone above and below him here troubled him.

Ahead, the corridor dropped into a spiral staircase, and Dakesh crept down first, sword held low. They encountered nothing past dust on the walls, and emerged into another arched passageway. Here, a single torch hung from an iron bracket, so the mercenary motioned for Deekin to call a magelight. Deekin obeyed, and tried not to let his thoughts dwell on why the passageway was so quiet. The stone sloped downwards under his feet, and he could see another closed doorway at the far end. His eyes were pinned on the back of Dakesh's legs when he heard the snap and whine of magic, not far ahead.

The mercenary stiffened, and his head turned. "Did you hear that?"

"Yep." It had sounded odd, though, not the build-up of a spell, more like the finishing of one.

"Do you know what it was?"

Deekin shook his head. "No. Sounded strange, though. Not a normal spell."

"What do you mean, not a normal spell?"

"Not like a spell Deekin would use in a fight."

Dakesh gripped his sword tighter. "Some kind of defensive spell?"

"Maybe, but it also sounded big. Big enough to hear through door and walls." Deekin shrugged. "Sorry. Deekin not really know."

The mercenary grunted and moved on again. Following, Deekin let his tongue taste the air, and frowned. The odd, arcane tang was nothing he knew, though it reminded him of those rippling portals in Cania, or maybe the one the Reaper had called to send them back to Waterdeep. _Why would a portal open down here? Who would be mad enough to want to come here? _Well, he would, obviously, but that did not give him an answer.

Deekin sang the door open at the end of the corridor, and saw steps beyond, looping down to another doorway. Given the design of the fortress so far, he guessed that they would find a larger chamber, part of one of the towers probably, and maybe turned into an armoury, or guard room. The lingering traces of magic were thicker here, and he wondered again if it was some trick of the cambion and his servants, or some outside influence.

Halfway down the steps, Dakesh paused. He murmured, "I can hear someone."

Deekin hopped down beside him, and listened. Yes, there were footsteps against stone, beyond the door. Too few to be a proper contingent of guards, which was strange. "Not many people."

"How many?"

He listened a moment longer. One set of footfalls was a hint heavier than the other, but both were cautious. "Two, maybe. And…Dakesh, they be too light to be guards."

"What?"

"They sound too light to be guards," Deekin insisted. He had no idea what they _would_ find, but whoever was on the other side of the door did not sound laden down with mail and breastplates and big heavy weapons.

"Then get that door open and we'll find out," Dakesh said.

Deekin murmured the incantation, and heard the snicking sound as the lock popped. He was expecting shouts of discovery, or running feet, or the swords rattling out of scabbards. Instead, he heard nothing, except the absence of noise. Dakesh approached the door, eyed it suspiciously. He exchanged a quick look with Deekin, and then the mercenary kicked the door open and leaped to one side, pressing himself against the wall.

Through the door, Deekin saw only darkness. When no bolts whirred out of the shadows, and he heard no orders to advance, he hopped across the corridor, stopped beside the mercenary. Dakesh's eyes were narrow as he stood poised, his entire frame rigid. He nodded at Deekin's magelight, and Deekin understood.

The mercenary launched himself through the doorway, the magelight above his shoulder and throwing brightness into the chamber beyond. Deekin saw curving walls, and the slashing shape of a slim sword, and two short, lithe figures. Metal grated as Dakesh spun and crashed into one of them, and Deekin stared. The magelight whirled past the mercenary, and his opponent flinched back from it. Dakesh pushed on, and Deekin saw the figure meet his strokes, despite one hand held up to block the light.

_Light that was falling onto long white hair. _Deekin blinked and edged closer. The attacker pirouetted, and Deekin realised he was looking at a drow. _What's a drow doing in Sigil? _Steel crashed again, and then he amended his thought to, _what the hells is Imloth doing in Sigil? _

Deekin barreled through the doorway, hands flung up. "Dakesh! _Stop!_"

The mercenary deflected a low cut with the bracered flat of his forearm, spun and met the drow's attack. "_What?_"

"_Deekin?_" Opposite the mercenary, his stance coiled and suspicious, Imloth glared over the tip of his sword.

Dakesh did not back down, did not tug his sword free from where it had snagged against Imloth's hilt. "You_ know_ each other?"

"This be Imloth. Deekin knows Imloth. Imloth helped Boss and Goat-man in the Underdark." He looked past Imloth's narrow shoulders, saw the second figure. Another drow, in robes and with a tangle of energy burning between both hands. _The Seer_, he realised. _Both of them together. _"That be the Seer. Deekin knows them both."

"They're _drow_," the mercenary snarled.

"They're Deekin's friends," Deekin cut across him. "Back down. Please." He looked from the mercenary to Imloth. "Please."

Imloth exchanged a quick look with the Seer. At her nod, he lowered his sword, but the tension did not empty from his poise. "Deekin. Who's your friend?"

"This be Dakesh," Deekin said simply. "Deekin wonders…why you both here?"

"For the same reason you are," Imloth answered. "We're looking for Valen and Jaiyan."

Deekin blinked again. His thoughts were tumbling. Part of him registered that it was wonderful, that Imloth and the Seer were here, that they could help him find Boss and Goat-man. That two drow who could see in the dark and knew weapons and magic might make the ordeal that tiny bit easier. But Dakesh was still wary, his hand still round his sword, and he was looking at Imloth the way a man might look at a snake that was feigning death.

"I thought you said you didn't know anyone else in Sigil," the mercenary said.

"Deekin didn't," he responded. "Deekin not know how they got here."

"Portal," Imloth supplied.

"How did they know to come here?" Dakesh demanded.

"The Seer had a dream."

"A dream?" The mercenary stepped back a pace, but his sword stayed raised. "You put such trust in dreams, drow?"

"She is gifted with visions from the goddess Eilistraee herself," Imloth snapped. "Would you question such a thing?"

"I would question anything that threatens me." Dakesh grinned, but Deekin saw less humour and more wariness. "Including supposed allies who appear within the walls of such a place."

"The Seer be the one in charge of drow city Deekin went to," Deekin said desperately. "The rebel city."

"Oh, so they're _good_ drow. I'm all the more uplifted. I'm still not sure why they're here."

"We are here," the Seer said slowly, carefully, "because Deekin's friends mean much to both of us. We are here because my dreams were filled with visions of Deekin's friends locked away and tortured, and we are here to help Deekin rescue them, if we can."

Dakesh grunted. He swung around, looked down at Deekin, and asked, "Do you trust them?"

"Yes. Deekin trusts them."

"Alright. That suits me." He sheathed his sword with a sharp ring of metal. "Either one of them sneaks up behind me though, I'll gut them, you understand?"

Imloth laughed. "You've worked with drow before, then?"

Dakesh stopped, and a sudden, exhausted smile crossed his face. "Not lately."

Deekin breathed out slowly and carefully. _Nearly had a dead drow and a dead mercenary. _He supposed Imloth _might_ have been able to take the tiefling in a fight, being so much older, and being, well, a drow, but the mercenary was tall and lean and moved like Goat-man. Still, even if the mercenary _had_ managed to skewer Imloth, Deekin figured the Seer would have had him prone and sizzling with some spell a heartbeat later. _So, all in all, a much better result, given that everyone's still breathing._ But the Seer had said _locked away and tortured_, and Deekin did not want to think about what that might mean.

"Now." The Seer clasped her hands. "Are either of you hurt?"

Dakesh shook his head. "Bruises and small cuts."

"Neither one of which are an asset when crawling through a place like this." While Imloth scanned the corridor, and closed the door, she added, "I can see blood on your shoulder. Let me help."

"I'm fine."

"She's a healer," Imloth said. "Let her."

Dakesh bristled, but Deekin leaned up, touched his elbow. "Save the healing potions this way," he said. "Lady drow be good healer."

"Alright," the mercenary said, grudgingly. "But you'd better be right about this, kobold."

He did not mean just the healing, and Deekin understood. He grinned, watched as the mercenary stood uncomfortably while the Seer touched the joint between his shoulder and arm. "Don't worry. Deekin _always_ right."

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Jaiyan edged forward, listening to the soft scrape of her feet against the damp stone, and the rushing of her pulse in her ears. Still weaponless, she felt vulnerable, and desperately hoping she would run into nothing bigger than she was. _Hah. Down here, do you think that's likely? _She scrubbed the thought from her mind and kept moving, slowly and carefully, following the line of the passageway.

She had made little progress, since every jangle of chain or cry she heard made her stop, heart in mouth. From her memory, she was still not near where Valen was being kept, though she knew that if the cambion had moved him, she would need more than a hefty dose of luck to find him. _Luck, weapons and keys to not just your cell_. The keys she had taken from Kaenor had opened nothing past the corridor doors, and she did not fancy the prospect of finding whatever keys might unlock Valen's cell.

The passageway extended along, with smaller corridors branching off, and always the same stone beneath and the same fluttering torches. Jaiyan paused and wondered again if she had turned herself around, if there even was a way out of this warren. _Of course there is_, she thought firmly. _There's a way in. Has to be a way out. _

She kept moving, the skin between her shoulders tightening every time she heard the bang of wood against stone. Nothing stirred in the corridor behind her. How many people were down here, she wondered, and how many stayed prisoners? How many were shipped off to the Blood Wars, or sold on to other masters? _How many were forgotten? _Jaiyan shook such thoughts aside. _Valen. We're caring about Valen and getting him out. _

Ahead, another door blocked the passageway. She crept up to it, paused long enough to press the side of her head against the keyhole and listen. She made out footsteps, and the creaking of wood, maybe a chair, and something thumping down against more wood. Paper rustling, and someone sighing. _A bored guard, perhaps?_

She eased back from the door, unhooked the keys. _Nowhere else to go. No, but you're finished if whoever's in there turns out to be really big, heavily armed or both. _

She chewed the inside of her cheek, and came to the conclusion that it would probably not count as the stupidest thing she had ever attempted. _Not quite, anyway._ She shoved the key into the lock, twisted it round, and gritted her teeth as the door swung inwards.

Sitting with his feet braced up on a table was a guard. He was half facing away from her, one hand wrapped around a cup, and the other dangling at his side. Relieved that he was at least human-shaped, and not huge, Jaiyan gauged the distance and desperately launched herself at him.

She crashed full force into him, and when he cried out and flailed, the chair toppled. She had time to register that he had dark hair and was built lean and wiry. He was scrabbling for his dagger while the hilt of his sword was jammed against her side, and she knew she had little time. She rammed an elbow into the underside of his jaw. When he coughed and tried to breathe, she wrestled the dagger from his hand. There was a confused, desperate moment when he thrashed, and slammed both knees into her back. She tumbled over him, taking the dagger with her. She kicked out with one foot, heard him grunt when her heel connected with his chest.

Hurling herself forward, Jaiyan heard the metallic rasp of his sword. She flipped over, and rolled madly to one side. The sword bit down behind her. She lurched up to her feet, and her head spun. She felt clumsy and slow, the muscles in her legs and shoulders already aching. She ducked another sweep of his sword, dived past him. Came up half-stumbling, and raked the dagger along the outside of his thigh.

The guard swayed, and cried out. The sword tilted in his hand. She landed a kick on the inside of his forearm, and the sword dropped. Another surge forward, and she sank the dagger into his throat. She yanked the blade sideways, and winced at the hot gush of blood. The guard convulsed and fell, hit the floor hard.

Jaiyan swallowed, hating the gnawing weariness in her. _All you did was attack one guard, and it wasn't even that much of a fight. True, but it's not like that cambion's been feeding you a banquet every day. _

She stepped over the guard, closed the door. A quick look around showed her a small chamber, with a fireplace and a table, and an empty weapons rack near the door. She unbuckled the guard's sword belt, settled it around her waist. The sword was less well-balanced than she was used to, but it was sharp and would have to do. The dagger followed, hanging from her other hip. She gave the dead guard a final glance, and decided his chain shirt would be far too big and would only hinder her. She took the keys she found on him, and the small bag of coin she discovered inside his shirt.

A brisk search of the room turned up little else of use, except an extra healing potion to shove inside the satchel. And a small bottle of whiskey, three-quarters full and smelling worse than the stash she and Dorna had once made during a particularly long stretch of winter. Still, she sniffed it, decided she should be grateful for small mercies, and sipped at it. It was hideous, and hit the back of her throat with nothing approaching smoothness, but she gulped down a good two inches.

_Perhaps things are looking up. Or at least, looking less awful. _She settled the satchel over her shoulder, and tested the weight of the sword. She doubted she could pass herself off as a guard, but at least now she had better means of hitting back.

The door on the other side of the room opened onto another corridor. Water ran in thick, slimy rivulets down the stone, pooling onto the floor. There were fewer torches up here, and the doors seemed further apart, and she wondered what that might mean. _Did he drag you through here? _She could not remember. She recalled the pain in her back, and the torches fluttering past, and doors opening and closing.

Jaiyan stepped out into the corridor, listened, and heard nothing but her own breathing, and the snapping of the nearest torch.

_Nothing for it, then_, she thought. _Keep looking, and look until you find him. _


	20. Chapter 20

_**Chapter Twenty – Secrets**_

Nathyrra crossed the practice field, half watching a handful of soldiers as they worked through the morning's archery drill. It seemed a lifetime or two since she had first ventured down to the target line, and found Imloth talking some inexperienced recruit through how to get the most out of a shortbow in close quarters. She had felt unmoored, those first weeks in the city, when the scars of her escape from the Red Sisters and the Valsharess were still knitting. The Seer had gently reminded her that she was safe, that no one would hurt her, that she was free to make her own choices. A little more prodding, and she had stepped out into the city alone, along with the Seer's suggestion that Commander Imloth might prove both good company and useful, if she wanted to spar.

She had discovered him at the far end of the field, she remembered, and that speculative part of her noted that he was strikingly handsome, taller than most males, with pale eyes beneath a long fall of thick white hair. He had turned, she recalled, and smiled.

_"I'm Commander Imloth. The Seer said I might see you today." He stepped away from the recruit, ran a critical eye over the younger male's stance. "Alright. Try it again."_

_The string loosed, and the arrow thumped into the target, some four inches off-centre. _

_"Better," Imloth allowed. "Keep it up, though, and you won't be half bad." He turned away from the recruit, and the smile returned. "You're Nathyrra, yes?"_

_She was still not used to this, to a male speaking with such confidence and authority. She had known strong-willed male soldiers and assassins, both in Menzoberranzan and under the Valsharess' command, but even so, he should have been inclining his head, spreading his hands to show her he was not about to reach for weapons, obeying those entrenched rules of conduct, anything but this bright, startling smile. "Yes."_

_"I understand you arrived not long ago."_

_"Eight days." _

_She remained close-mouthed and uncertain through the rest of their exchange, but he seemed to neither mind nor notice. She watched him with the recruits, and noticed that he was punishingly strict but stayed shy of being cruel. Afterwards, he sparred with her, and they traded stories of favourite weapons. She learned that he knew swords and bows, but much preferred the latter, and told him in turn how she could handle a sword but had been trained to use daggers. _

Nathyrra shook herself clear of the memory. It had taken time, but she had slowly learned to trust him, and his advice, and had grown to consider him that strangest of things, a male she did not know intimately but enjoyed simply being around.

She heard the snapping sound of quarterstaffs meeting, and looked up in time to see two of her soldiers trading strokes. Beyond them, her current problem stood with his arms folded and a slight smile on his face as he observed. Since he had passed her councilors' test, they had decreed him capable of helping out on the practice field. With her hands tied – what could she say, in truth, that would convince them otherwise, and besides, he was accomplished enough – Nathyrra had agreed. So far he had done little directly, preferring to stand and scrutinize the others, or sometimes spar with them, or very occasionally offer some opinion.

"Ah, mistress." Andaryn turned, tipped his head in her direction. "How may I serve you?"

"I need to speak with you." Without waiting for an answer, Nathyrra spun on her heel. He caught up with her as she strode past the tavern, and Nathyrra noticed that he was apparently unarmed. _Or at least, he's left his sword in his rooms._

"Mistress?" When she did not reply, he offered, "Nathyrra?"

She flung a quick glance at him. "We need to talk. There are things you need to tell me."

"But of course. I thought you'd never ask."

She bit back a venomous retort, and walked faster, her eyes pinned on the temple ahead. These past few days, he had proved suspiciously tight-lipped, and she wondered why. _Because he's been lying? Because there was no attack, and no mission? But he was dreadfully hurt, and something did that to him. _For a brief, frustrated instant, Nathyrra reflected that her mother and sisters would have just taken the option of strapping Andaryn to a rack and slowly tightening it until he spilled whatever it was he knew.

In the silence of her chambers, she allowed herself to exhale properly. "Now. You owe me the truth."

"The truth?" He smiled, leaned indolently against the doorframe. "Truth is slippery, mistress. Like a snake, it needs to be pinned."

"Saerith and your last mission," she said, cutting across him. "Half of your companions slain. Something in the darkness with you."

"Yes. Something." His eyes were hooded. "We found no weapons, no footprints. Our wizard said he felt something in the air, some arcane touch. The smell of magic…you know how the air changes."

She did, and she knew how much thicker and sharper it seemed in low tunnels, when the stone pressed in overhead and the sparks of shed power burst and died. "Invisibility spells?"

"That was my assumption. But no…there was – or seemed to be – simply nothing." He shrugged, and six swift steps took him to the casement. "When next we set up camp, our wizard set wards, and we kept eight guards."

"What happened?"

"The guards died." One side of his mouth lifted. "And we began to suspect each other. Slept little, did not trust the supplies." His smirk widened, but the red eyes above were narrow and bleak. "Twelve of us, and Saerith as our leader. A wonder we did not all kill each other."

Something icy wound down Nathyrra's spine. She recalled a mission undertaken for the Red Sisters, handed to her by the Valsharess herself. She and another female, both in the black and the red, to lead an expedition to an old, abandoned fortress, far to the south. Fifty days toiling through the darkness, a run-in with slavers, and an encounter with beholders, and four of them remained. They had been sent after riches, and some arcane artifact the Valsharess wished for herself.

_And you killed them_, Nathyrra thought, oddly detached. After her fellow Red Sister had fallen, sliced almost in half by a trap, she had taken the artifact. And, quite calmly, had knifed her two other companions. _And taken the artifact – the chalice, with its odd patterns and cold metal – back to the Valsharess and claimed the glory and the respect for herself. _

"Mistress?" Andaryn looked up from his pose on the windowsill. "Have I…said something I should not?"

"What happened after that?" Her voice came out jarringly loud.

"There was more death." His head tilted, and his eyes turned challenging. "But, surely mistress…I have danced for your councilors, and played with your soldiers, and even offered advice to those young males who seem to think they will one day wield a blade with something approaching skill. Do I not deserve _something_ in return?"

She grinned. "Such as? A knife in the back for proving close-mouthed?"

"Ah, mistress. This is not such a city, though, is it? Here, we have no slaves. Here, there is no murder. Here, my death would cause as many questions as my arrival. And to pass it off as an accident…well, mistress, you would have to conjure quite a story."

"You're not likely to fall out of that window, then?" Nathyrra laughed, half out of relief, and half to push back the insistent knot of anger that was burning in her chest. "What would you wish in return, then, impertinent male?"

"A secret for a secret," he said. "Trade me something."

"A secret?" She forced another smile. "Something scandalous, or something terrible? Something shocking, or something tragic?"

"So many choices. Do you have such a past, mistress, that you have so many secrets to offer?"

"I have as many secrets as I'd wager you do. You, or anyone in this city." She crossed the floor, sat opposite him, perched on the end of the bed. "Which is it to be?"

"Oh, something tragic."

She searched his face, and saw nothing past the wall in his eyes and the slightly taunting curve of his mouth. _Why was she even contemplating this? Why not cut the truth out of him and take it to your councilors along with his carved-apart body? Learn whatever it is he knows and rid the city of him. _

_Because you won't,_ her thoughts told her firmly. _The Seer would not, and would not let you, and you simply won't. So you're going to have to sit and seethe until he finally spills it. _

"When I lived with my mother and my sisters in Menzoberranzan," she said, "I was foolish enough to let myself become heavy with child."

"A dalliance, or a favourite?"

"A dalliance. My mother cared little either way, but then I made the mistake of birthing a son. A daughter she could have taken into the family, and raised, but a son..." Nathyrra twisted the end of one of her braids thoughtfully. The birth itself had passed in a whirl of pain and exhaustion, and her mother's disapproving glance, when the child proved a boy. "The child was given to the arena masters to train. I had three sisters, and they all produced healthy daughters. The second time I fell pregnant was forgiven in the same manner, the male child I bore sent to the arena. My mother once even told me he proved quite a fighter, until a training match turned ugly, and he was killed. An accident, or so she said."

Andaryn uncoiled from the windowsill. For an uncertain moment, Nathyrra wondered if he was going to move and sit beside her, but he hooked his feet back up beneath him. "And the third?" he asked quietly.

"Is my story so obvious?" She smiled, and was slightly surprised that she still felt the sting of bitterness. "The third was the same, and my mother was…unimpressed."

Her mother had been furious, snarling that no daughter of House Kant'tar would call such a curse down on her own family, and how dare she spawn only males? If she was going to be stupid enough to fill her womb with some male's seed, then could she at least tumble with males with a known history of siring females? Nathyrra remembered how she had shouted back at her, long and hard enough to earn herself punishment that had left her unable to walk.

"What happened?" he asked, still hushed.

"He was taken the day I gave birth."

"To the altar?"

"I suppose." Her mother had never spoken of it, and she had never quite dared ask. "I was young, and realised then that my own survival was too fragile to waste upon asking after a male who could have died a thousand ways since his birth."

"Saerith told us she knew what was in the darkness," Andaryn said, haltingly. His crimson eyes were trained on the polished floor. An uneasy, haunted kind of tension stiffened his shoulders. "The spirits of something fallen, she said. Things long dead, and feeding on our deaths. The Valsharess knew of them, and wished them contained, and trapped, and taken back to her."

Nathyrra narrowed her eyes. "And she sent so many of you…"

"Yes. As a sacrifice….an offering. A meal," he amended coldly. "Except…when Saerith told us this…well, I am sure you know the danger of telling eleven heavily armed drow males that they had been staked out as bait."

"You killed her." So deep down, she thought, deep under stone and far from anything safe. She had seen experienced, capable soldiers snap and lash out, broken by the weight of the unmoving air and the threat of what _might_ be in the darkness.

"Not me personally, mistress. That dubious honour went to another scout. He cut her throat and then hacked her chest open, and left her there, for whatever it was in the darkness to feed." He exhaled slowly, and she noticed that his hands were locked together over one knee. "I wonder even now why she told us."

"Fear?"

"No, she was not afraid." A thin smile lifted his mouth. "Maybe she was hoping for…I don't know what. And the things in the darkness came for her. And came for the rest of us."

Nathyrra found a half-finished bottle of sweet white wine, and glasses. About to pour, she swore when a tentative knock sounded at the door. "Yes, _what?_"

"Matron Mother?" The door swung inwards, revealing a male servant. He ducked his head deferentially, but she noticed how he looked past her anyway, must have seen Andaryn. "Your councilors require your presence."

"Require?"

"Discussions concerning trade, Matron Mother." The servant's eyes stayed down this time.

"Trade." Nathyrra considered telling him exactly what her councilors could do with that. _That will solve nothing_, she thought. _Go and play, and let them waste your time. _Still, there were few enough new merchants bringing goods into the city, and perhaps her more stubborn councilors could be persuaded that overtures to other small outposts might be a worthwhile venture. "Very well," she said, haughtily. "I will be there soon."

The servant bobbed his head again and vanished, and Nathyrra kicked the door closed. When the frame rattled satisfyingly, she turned, saw Andaryn watching her sidelong. "Will you tell me the rest later?"

He nodded, and she saw his eyes darting. He peeled his hands away from his knee, and she saw them trembling slightly. "May I…stay here?"

"Of course." She wondered if she should say anything else, but he had turned away, curled himself up in the windowseat again. So she left him there, staring down on the marketplace below, and stepped out into the corridor and into the scent of burning incense.

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Jaiyan pressed herself back into the dark stone alcove and tried not to breathe too loudly. She could feel sweat prickling on her forehead and between her shoulders, and her hand around the sword hilt was slippery. She heard another door opening somewhere nearby, and then footsteps, hard against the stone floor and receding. She had survived two run-ins with lone guards, and was dreading the inevitable moment when she would have to face more than one at a time.

She was too tired, too wrung through, and every key she had taken from the dead guards had led only to storerooms or empty cells or through to more long, winding passageways.

Jaiyan peered out of the alcove, saw nothing threatening. But still, the corridor extended down tauntingly, and she knew she had nothing to do but hope that she would reach the door at the far end. The slow, painful pace her own ignorance and exhaustion had forced on her rankled, but there was simply no other way, she knew. _Slowly and carefully, one step at a time, one guard at a time. _

She made it down the corridor, through the door, and into another round chamber. No windows again, and she wondered desperately just how far underground this place went. Water ran in wide lines down the walls, and candles fluttered, stuck upright in thick wax. Beams crossed overhead, and she could see dust and skeins of cobwebs. _You're turned around,_ she thought. _Turned around and lost. But how the hells to get back on track? _

She ransacked the walls and the table and the two chests she found, and came up with nothing useful. Plates, a spoon, an empty waterskin. Sheathed swords and propped-up shields and halberds. Tempted to scream, or maybe just swear loudly, Jaiyan jammed her knuckles into her mouth and seethed.

She heard footsteps, and chainmail jangling, and a guard shouting to his men to keep up.

Close to frantic, Jaiyan jumped up onto the table. She had few options, and no wish to fight an entire contingent of guards. She sheathed her sword, judged the distance to the beams above. Her first attempt gave her nothing more than skinned knuckles and the conclusion that she was about to get caught swinging helplessly off the beam. _So you're not only going to die, you're going to look like an idiot while doing it. _

She vaulted up again, caught the edge of the beam and hung on grimly. She twisted herself up and around, wincing when every muscle down her side screamed in protest. Landing prone, she inched forward, trying to ignore the way the satchel dug into her shoulder. Easing herself into the darkness near the curve of the wall, she bit her lip when the door opened.

Boots hitting the floor, and the slapping sound of someone's scabbard jostling someone else. She heard one of them complain about being woken. Another guard cut across him, told him the Master required them, required them all. Something about the third gate followed, and how it had been breached, and how no one remembered the last time that had happened. Death would follow, the guard added arrogantly, as it always did to those foolish enough to attack the Master's home.

Jaiyan heard scraping, and the sounds of wood creaking. She guessed they must be lifting shields and halberds from the weapon racks. Another moment, and the guard ordered his men back out at a cracking pace. She stared up at the cobwebs above her and let herself breathe again. _The third gate had been breached. _How many gates did this place even have, she wondered? And just _who_ was getting through them?

_Deekin_, she thought. _You know he'd try. But by himself? In Sigil? When he couldn't know who took you or where you were taken to? _

_Still, if there's anyone who could bully some poor unsuspecting new ally into helping him do something insane, it's Deekin._ She felt a grin forming, despite herself, despite the dust that was tickling her face. _Right. How to muddy the waters further, then..?_

She glanced up further, past the hanging cobwebs. Saw the jutting end of a stone block, protruding out over the beam. A short shuffle along the wide beam took her to the wall, where she could see the blank darkness of a gap between the stones. _A tunnel, or a hole..?_

After listening for more footfalls, Jaiyan hopped down onto the table. Unhooked one of the torches from the wall, and wondered about the wisdom of leaping back up onto the wooden beam with it. Eventually she figured that accidentally setting the place ablaze might aggravate the cambion, and generally cause chaos in his prison. She swung herself back up one-handed, and swore when she wrenched the joint in her shoulder and bumped both knees against the beam.

She crawled back up to the gap, lifted the torch. _A tunnel_, she realised. The flamelight showed her a low roof, and dust swirling in the air, and narrow walls leading back off into the darkness. The floor of the tunnel was smoothed over, so she supposed it was deliberate. Still, it looked deep and dark and rather uninviting.

_Creepy tunnel or corridors with guards. _On any other day, she would have gladly picked the guards. But she was exhausted, and still hungry, and guessed there probably could not be anything worse in the tunnel than in the corridors below. She was already disoriented, and the last thing she needed was to run into a whole group of guards while lost. _And if this tunnel goes nowhere, I can always turn back,_ she thought.

A key was shoved into the door below her. _Well, that makes my decision for me. Do no good to let them see me up here with the damn torch._ She dived into the tunnel, yanking the torch ahead of her. She crawled, quickly and quietly, trying to give herself enough ground that whoever would be pushing the door open about now would see nothing untoward.

She kept going, scrambling forward, and trying not to think of horrible comparisons with the Underdark. She glanced behind, saw only blackness. Reaching up showed her the tunnel ceiling. She had little room to move; rocking back on her heels made her head brush the stone above. On either side, she had perhaps half an arm's length of space. _Still, means anything in here can't be all that big. _

She crawled forward again, stared at the torchflame, the walls, even down at the stone beneath her knees. She found herself counting breaths, or how long she held the torch in one hand before swapping it across. Anything to keep herself from wondering where the tunnel might lead, or if she had made the right choice.

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Imloth cleaned his sword methodically, and rolled his shoulders to work out the deep ache that had settled between them. Beneath his armour, his skin prickled and sang with that all-too-familiar rush of excitement. To his left, the Seer was gently cleaning a ragged wound at the base of one of the kobold's wings, while the tiefling mercenary guarded the door. They had barricaded themselves in a small armoury, and it had been some time since Imloth had heard running feet or shouting beyond the door.

The resistance they had met at the third gate had convinced both him and the mercenary that there was no way they could continue in secrecy. The corridors had given way to a colonnade and courtyard, and finally led up to towering doors. The walls above had bristled with archers, and Imloth had seen demons among them. The Seer had called white, burning energy down on them, while Deekin heaved fire spells, and he and the mercenary had cut down the guards edging in from both sides on the ground. A stray arrow had clipped across his shoulders, and he realised with a sudden shock how much some scant months of peace in Waterdeep had spoiled his reflexes.

The tiefling mercenary had proved admirably deadly in combat, and Imloth found himself wondering again where the kobold had found him. Still, even amid the taut quiet there was little time for such questions. Not when he guessed that the corridor outside would be thronged with guards again too quickly. _And why not_, he thought wryly. _We did, after all, set fire to their gate. _

A volley of fireballs, he recalled, flung by the kobold. Slamming into the gates and sinking in. Sparks flying, and the wall of flame cast at the base of the gates creeping up and catching. The guards above had screamed, and the Seer's follow-up spell had washed across them, turning them to charcoal. Panicking guards on the other side of the gates had shoved them open, running out and onto Imloth's sword. The mercenary had mowed through as many, though, and Imloth found himself quietly impressed.

Beyond, there had been another courtyard, and towers rising above. Ploughing through to the door and into the corridors beyond had been grueling. A mad rush down the passageway had seen them into the armoury, while Dakesh blocked the door with a table and the kobold asked the mercenary if the gash on his leg was serious.

"Imloth?" The Seer touched his arm.

"Yes?" He looked across, saw the kobold twisting his head around, trying to see his own wings. "He's alright?"

"Yes." She pushed a sweat-damp coil of hair away from her forehead.

Too many times at the gates he had been tempted to check on her, to see if she needed protecting, to see if she needed help. _She's terrifyingly capable,_ he thought. And yet he had still caught himself, about to bolt and try and save her. _From what? _He wondered if this was how Valen had felt, during the siege of Lith My'athar, when they had sent Jaiyan to the armoury, and away from Valen.

"Now what, drow?" At the door, Dakesh grinned over one shoulder. "I hear no footsteps yet, but I don't think Azraleth will wait long."

"What are our chances of facing him?" the Seer asked.

"You mean our chances of surviving, or just of seeing him?" Dakesh turned, leaned against the table. "He's likely to keep himself hidden away. I don't think you become a wealthy slaver by throwing yourself at every fool who tries to topple you. Not when you have guards and servants by the score."

"Maybe not, but he's a cambion," Imloth said.

"True, but even cambions die." Dakesh tapped the hilt of his sword impatiently. "Still, if this tiefling friend of yours is so important to him…maybe that's where we'll meet him."

"What about Boss?"

"Can't see him caring," Dakesh said clinically. "He'll be using her to get to him, but I doubt he'd care if she's breathing or not."

"Is Boss still alive?" Deekin swung around and stared at the Seer. "Is she?"

"Yes," the Seer answered. "She is alive. They both are."

"Do you know where?" Dakesh asked.

"They are both…underground. Down somewhere."

"The prison." The mercenary shook his head grimly. "That place is a warren. Can your dreams tell you anything useful?"

The Seer fixed him with a steely, level gaze. "They can tell me Valen is alone, still shackled. They can tell me that Jaiyan is somewhere else, somewhere…moving."

"Moving?" Dakesh groaned. "You mean she's escaped?"

"Yes. Still underground…still lost."

"She always speak in riddles?" The mercenary grimaced. "Alright. We'll need steps going down. You're sure about this?"

Deekin nodded. "If Boss is escaped and on her own, then Boss needs to be found. Quickly. Deekin not like thought of Boss wandering around demon prison on her own."

Dakesh growled and straightened up. "If I survive this, you're paying me extra."

"Deekin already was."

"_Extra_ extra." Dakesh drew his sword and motioned to Imloth. "Should I waltz out first, or do you want that honour?"

Imloth grinned. He did not trust the mercenary, despite anything the kobold had said, but something in that bitten-off, wry tone amused him. "Allow me," he said drily. "Follow me and don't do anything stupid."

"Anything you say."

Imloth shifted the table to one side, paused to listen. Behind him, he heard the sound of the Seer calling some spell, that strange, sighing inrush of air. He eased the door open, saw that the corridor was clear. He led them out, the mercenary at his shoulder. Even now, so long after leaving the city of his birth, he discovered that he disliked having someone he did not know at all well poised behind him with a drawn weapon. _No time to think of such things. _

He padded down the corridor, Dakesh matching him a pace behind. Back down to where the corridor had forked, and this time he chose the other way. A long, empty stretch of passageway led to steps, descending. Torches threw shifting shadows, and Imloth froze every time he thought he heard footsteps. The steps dropped down into another narrow corridor, with a high door at one end, guarded.

A whining, bright spell exploded past Imloth's head, burrowed against one of the three guards. The other two fell quickly, one under his sword, and the second after Dakesh crashed into him and sawed his head half off. Beyond the door, the ceiling was low, the floor beneath runnelled with water.

The Seer touched Imloth's elbow, stopping him. "This is…I dreamed of this place." Her eyes flickered as she took in the cramped walls and guttering torches. "They're down here…somewhere."

"Somewhere?" Dakesh arched a cynical eyebrow. "I'd wager my left arm this is the prison level. 'Somewhere' isn't helpful. This place is a maze. I've known slave traders who won't come down this far because they're afraid to be lost along with their goods."

The Seer's eyes flared warningly. "Then find me somewhere safe where I ask for help."

"Your goddess answers that easily?"

"I turned drow in their hundreds away from the touch of the Spider Queen," she said slowly. "I began a rebellion in Eilistraee's name, and spoke the prophecy that caused the downfall of the Valsharess. So yes," she added pointedly. "My goddess answers that easily."

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Deekin trailed after the mercenary and the drow, and hoped for at least the eighth time that they would not come to blows over something trivial. Still, now they were searching for somewhere vaguely safe where the Seer could pray, and the other two were prowling ahead, both reminding Deekin of rain-wet, angry cats.

The Seer's admission that Boss was not only alive but up and out somewhere had made Deekin prickle uncomfortably. Yes, he was excited that she was still breathing and had escaped, but he hated the idea of her on her own, somewhere down in this labyrinth of corridors and shadows. She could run into anything down here, guards or demons or the cambion.

Dakesh touched his shoulder, and he looked up into the mercenary's severe, angled face. "You alive down there?"

Deekin nodded. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry. Just stay breathing." The mercenary smiled tiredly. "Are your friends always this…drow-like?"

"They _be_ drow," Deekin answered. "That be like asking Deekin not to be a kobold."

"Kobolds are different."

Deekin opened his mouth to retort, but Imloth was moving ahead of them, his sword drawn and held low. The drow whirled and smacked shoulder-first into a guard. Pirouetted again, and his sword raked across the guard's throat. A follow-up lunge took the second guard through the chest. He vaulted forward, pushing off the floor again, and catapulted himself at the third guard.

Dakesh gave him a disgruntled glare as he straightened up. "Damn drow."

"Well, you were busy sharing sweet nothings with Deekin."

The mercenary glowered a moment longer before laughing. "_That_ why you got kicked out of the Underdark? Smart-mouthed too many people?"

"My story would be far more interesting if that were true." Imloth twisted his wrist sharply, shaking blood from his sword.

Further down, the corridor twisted sharply off to the left. Another clutch of guards waited in front of an iron-banded door. One went down quietly, a crossbow bolt embedded in his neck. The others proved louder, and when Deekin hung back with the Seer to throw spells, he was fervently grateful again that they had run into the drow.

He remembered once talking with Boss about drow, long before the Underdark and the Seer's prophecy. Neither of them knew any drow personally, though Deekin had helped a gang of kobolds fend off a few lost drow scouts once. Boss only knew what she had read, that drow were viper-fast and the bane of any adventurer, and ferociously violent. Deekin remembered reading somewhere that drow could not be trusted, but he had always thought the same could be said of kobolds, or humans, or dragons.

Deekin heard another guard scream, and looked up to see the man falling off Dakesh's sword. White light spat from the Seer's braced hands, sliced into the guard who was rearing up behind Imloth. Deekin shook himself, leveled his crossbow and fired. The fourth guard toppled, leaving three. Dakesh ducked under Deekin's follow-up bolt and knocked back his next opponent.

Slightly detached, Deekin watched as the mercenary and the drow mopped up the last two guards. How many men and slaves did the cambion have to throw at them, he wondered? Some sly thought at the back of his mind worried him; even drow tired, and there might be a long way to go, and then what would he do? Boss needed rescuing, and there was no telling yet whether they would succeed. _No, _he thought firmly. _The drow are friends, and they are here to help, along with Dakesh. So we keep moving together, until we find Boss and Goat-man. _

"What about here?" Dakesh nudged the door open with the hilt of his sword. "It's a storeroom."

Inside, Deekin saw boxes, barrels on the floor, and bottles stacked on high, dusty shelves. Footprints tracked through the grime on the floor. He wondered how many of the cambion's servants never saw their master, maybe even had no clue about what they were doing. He had spent a long time in the caves before ever meeting Tymofarrar when he was much younger, though he had heard the other kobolds whispering about Old Master. The first time he had seen him, Old Master had been huge and imposing and white, his long, narrow head sharp against the shadows, the spines on his neck flaring.

"Deekin?"

He looked up again, and saw Dakesh watching him. A quick glance left and right showed him Imloth at the door, pulling a chest into place as an impromptu blockade, and the Seer coiling herself in the corner, her eyes closing. "Yes…?"

The mercenary crouched down. "Your drow lady friend said she's still alive and escaped. Jaiyan."

The name sounded strange on the mercenary's lips. "Yes. Deekin believes her." He leaned back against the wall. "Deekin wonders…do you remember her?"

"Remember her? What do you mean?"

"Well…Deekin remembers Boss saying about her and Goat-man working, and talking about Goat-man's flail…that was you. Yes?"

Dakesh looked sideways. "Yes."

"When Deekin found you and other mercenaries…"

"Yes, they pointed you to me because I'd worked with them." Dakesh scrubbed a hand back through his hair. "Look, I don't know what to tell you. I remembered him more."

"Goat-man?"

"Yes. Tall, red hair, stubborn as granite." Dakesh grinned. In the corner, the Seer raised her hands, murmuring something that Deekin could not understand. "We did a bit of escorting together. Along with some others. I remember she didn't say much, your Boss. Handy, though. Quick and sharp. Watched like a hawk when me and your Goat-man talked about his flail."

"Goat-man actually _talked_ about it?"

Dakesh laughed. "Only a little. He's seen some things, I'd wager."

"Yep. Boss, too." Deekin's throat felt thick, and he wanted to tell Dakesh all about Lith My'athar, and what they had been through, and Cania. "Dakesh?"

The mercenary's gaze was trained on the Seer, where she knelt with her face turned up. "Yes?"

"Deekin really wants this to work out alright."

Dakesh turned properly. "She means that much to you."

"Yes." Deekin saw the strange light in the mercenary's eyes, and did not know quite what to say. "Yes, she really does."


	21. Chapter 21

_Usual disclaimer applies - I own little past a few original characters. Reviews are always welcome. _

_**Chapter Twenty-One – Encounter  
**_

The grey, rippling skies of Sigil surged above the fortress. The air felt heavy and charged, and the warm wind sighing in through the open casement tasted somehow of metal. Tail lashing wildly, Azraleth stalked back across the floor. _The third gate was breached,_ he thought again. _No, not just breached…the damn thing was smoking. _Teams of guards with buckets and water had been ordered out, along with wizards to help damp the flames and shift the dead.

Azraleth kicked the door open, strode out into the corridor beyond. Glared at the human guard standing to attention. "Yes?"

"Master…" The guard's eyes were flickering.

"_Yes?_"

"The new prisoner…the woman." The guard gritted his teeth. "She's…not there. We found her feeder…locked in her shackles."

"Not there." Azraleth nearly laughed. The girl's nerve was admirable, but gods above, could the stupid human have chosen a worse time to try and escape? "Then set about finding where she _is_, yes?"

The guard nodded. "Yes, Master."

"And don't come back until you find her and can bring her to me."

"Alive, Master?"

Which would be better, he wondered? Alive, she could be punished, taught that attempting to escape from his prison would bring her only pain. _Still, dead she'd be less bother. Dead, and you could drop her in front of her tiefling, and let him see her. _"Alive," he decided. "For now."

_Yes,_ he thought. _Alive would be better. Drag her down to her damn tiefling and spread her pretty legs in front of him. _"The other prisoner?"

"The tiefling?" The guard nodded again, nervously. "Still there, Master."

"Good. And kill her feeder." Azraleth dismissed the guard with a wave of one hand. Whoever it was who was inside his walls, inside his fortress…they _must_ know Valen Shadowbreath. Know him and his woman and be here for them. _Too much of a coincidence otherwise. _There had been reports of some huge spell, as well, something opening between the second and third gates. _Did that mean extra help? More allies? Called in from outside to help? _

They would be found, he knew. Found and shackled and executed. Only once had the fortress been attacked successfully, and that had been years ago, when a contingent of rival tanar'ri had torn a huge gap in the wall and stormed the upper levels.

That had been the night Valen Shadowbreath had escaped.

He remembered Grimash't, and how angry he had been. His rivals had come for weapons and subdued slaves and to make a point, and in the aftermath of the chaos, he had lost his best battle slave. Demons had been sent after the tiefling, sent even to Toril after him, and none had returned. Grimash't had screamed, and shouted, and vowed to go after the tiefling himself, and break him, and drag him back to Sigil bleeding if he had to.

"_He is _mine_," Grimash't snarled. His wings flared, and his tail snapped. The burning redness of his eyes was fierce and furious. "He will be brought to see his mistake. His is _mine_ and I will _not_ let him go."_

Azraleth had never quite understood Grimash't's obsession. He had seen the tiefling in combat, and yes, he was masterful, and enviable, and could cut a swathe through a battlefield on his own. He had once dared ask Grimash't why he lost so many of his thoughts to the tiefling, and Grimash't had told it was not simple.

"_He was never meant to survive so long," _Grimash't had said. That, he understood; battle slaves were as plentiful and disposable as arrows, and though the odd one did live for some time, Valen Shadowbreath had managed to keep his head attached to his shoulders for many years. There were other things, too, Azraleth learned. Grimash't could not bribe him, or train him, or sate him with servant girls or boys or jewels to play with or new weapons to kill with. He was simply _unleashed_, and when he killed well, he was taken back to his cage.

Then there had been that day when Valen Shadowbreath had been returned to the fortress with his eyes all strange and wide, and his mind in another place. After speaking with those who had been summoned along with him, Grimash't had learned of the drow they had fought, and the female drow Valen Shadowbreath had failed to kill. Torture followed, many months of it, stretching into years, and the tiefling was never quite broken. Oh, Azraleth had seen his body go taut with pain, and blood running in thick gushes down his pale skin, and how he had a few times been made to scream until he lost his voice. But the defiance had stayed in him, and slowly, he had begun to kill less. Then there was the woman, the black-haired beautiful one he thought loved him. Azraleth remembered Grimash't's anger when he had discovered the tiefling's woman, and how coldly he had plotted his punishment.

And now Valen Shadowbreath was back in Sigil, with another woman, and again Azraleth wondered why. Still, reasons aside, it had been a delightful opportunity for revenge. Not that he owed any real loyalty to Grimash't in death, but the balor had set him up nicely, and handed him the keys to his business and his fortress, and quite frankly, news of the balor's old nemesis back in Sigil had been too tempting to pass up.

He remembered Grimash't's icy rage when he had planned to go marching off to Toril to find the tiefling.

"_And if you don't come back?" Azraleth asked quietly. _

"_I will, and I'll bring him with me, and I'll cut the payment for all the time he's wasted escaping out of his wretched hide." _

"_Your tiefling's taken down demons three times his size," Azraleth pointed out. _

"_He'll be alone, and lost, and exhausted."_

"_And he'll still have that flail." The flail had vanished along with the tiefling, and Azraleth had seen the tiefling wield it in battle with disturbing ease. "What if the unthinkable happens, and you don't come back?"_

_Grimash't snorted. "Then have the fortress, and the slaves, and see what you can make of it all. And kill that damn tiefling if you ever lay eyes on him again." _

Azraleth smiled as he strode down curving stairs. There had been a handful of battle slaves he knew of who had managed to escape, and survive somewhere else, and none of _them_ had the audacity and foolishness to come _back_ to Sigil, and not think that perhaps masters once shunned might not take too kindly to their return.

He crossed between the gates into the prison level, and paused to listen. He heard doors opening and closing, and the slow, measured pace of guards walking. Metal jangled somewhere. _But no running feet, no screams of attackers, no interlopers bursting out of the shadows. _He unhooked the key to the tiefling's cell, stopped again. Rubbed his thumb across the curling metal while he listened. _No, still nothing. Wherever they are, they're not here. _

He opened the door, stepped inside. Valen Shadowbreath hung against the wall, the shackles attached high enough that he had to stand. Azraleth had caught him more than once, drifting in sleep while he slumped against the stone, until the pain in his wrists woke him. The tiefling did not stir while the door was shut, or even when Azraleth stalked across the floor. He smiled, reached out and touched the back of the tiefling's head. The thick red hair was damp with sweat, and he could hear the tiefling's uneven breathing. "Valen?"

The tiefling's head turned, and his eyes snapped wide. Vivid blue and piercingly direct, as they always had been. He remembered the tiefling years ago, dragged in from the streets and put in irons and told that his life now belonged to Grimash't, and that he would serve until he died. The tiefling had been skinnier back then, that wiry, hunger-carved build he saw in all the street urchins. But the eyes had been the same, Azraleth recalled. _Jewel-bright and full of damned defiance, _Grimash't had once said.

"What do you want?" The tiefling's voice was sandy and rough.

"To see you."

"You've seen me. Now please leave."

Anger smoked through every word, and Azraleth grinned. The way the tiefling swayed between fury and despair, hatred and desolation amused him, and made him wonder how confusing it must be, to be inside the tiefling's mind right now. "Don't you want to talk about her, Valen?"

The tiefling's head dropped, spilling tangled red hair across marble-pale skin.

"Got quite a viper's tongue on her," Azraleth said. "I was thinking that maybe I'd make time to teach her how better to use it."

The tiefling's jaw clenched. _Can't quite stop that reaction, can you? _Azraleth stepped around beside him. Reached out and touched that vibrantly red hair again. "Do you remember the battlefields, Valen?"

The tiefling said nothing. Azraleth was tempted to strike him out of his reticence, or maybe order the flesh stripped from his shoulders. _No…not while his fortress was under some sly attack. _"Valen…how did you meet her?" When he received no reply, he grasped the tiefling's chin in one hand, gripped hard. "How did you meet her?"

"Underdark," the tiefling grated.

"And she helped you," Azraleth said, slow and reasonable. "She did something for you, yes?"

"Yes, she…no." The tiefling shook his head. "No, she…stop. Stop. Please."

Azraleth stroked the tip of one finger up the soft white skin of the tiefling's cheek. "She helped you in the Underdark, didn't she?"

"Yes."

"Good. And what did she help you with?"

"The drow."

"No, not that. Something about you, and your blood. What did she help you with, Valen?" When the tiefling said nothing, Azraleth leaned in close and whispered, "Valen, tell me."

"No, it's nothing." The tiefling jerked his head away. "Nothing important."

Azraleth looked at him and considered punching some sense into him. _No,_ he thought. _Damn tiefling's always been like this. Stubborn as rock. _"Valen, tell me this secret of yours, or the next time you see your beloved little girl, I promise you, she will be screaming underneath me."

A tremor ran through the tiefling's taut frame. He growled, deep in his throat, and then he was moving, throwing himself at Azraleth. The cambion glided away, laughing, and caught him by the shoulders. Under his hands, the tiefling's skin was hot and damp, and the angry fire in those blue eyes could have buckled steel.

"Calm down," Azraleth said lightly. "Don't you ever learn?"

The tiefling snarled again and yanked himself away. The chains rattled, and for a moment, Azraleth wondered if the tiefling was going to hurtle at him again. This time, though, the tiefling simply turned away, leaned his forehead against the wall. On any other day, Azraleth would have considered the merits of staying down here and wasting a lot more time with him. Valen Shadowbreath's obstinacy aggravated him no end, but it certainly made the eventual response – the short, gasped-out cries, the occasional scream, even – that much more worthwhile.

"I have to leave," Azraleth told him conversationally. "But I will see you again. And, Valen? When I do, she'll be with me, and you'll wish you had talked."

He swept away from the tiefling, listening hard for some reply, something vocal, even a sigh. He heard nothing past the snap of the chains as the tiefling moved. Back out into the corridor, he forced his thoughts away from his recalcitrant prisoner. The tiefling was going nowhere, and there would be time to deal with him later. Right now there was the annoyingly pressing problem of just _who_ had managed to slither their way through three gates. Still, Azraleth knew they would be stopped, and then he could have them quickly dealt with, and return to prying secrets out of Valen Shadowbreath.

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White light flared from the Seer's outstretched hands, and Deekin saw how her face slackened as she straightened up. Her next step turned into a stumble, and Imloth caught her elbow, steadied her. She pressed her face into his shoulder, and he tightened his grip on her, murmured something into her ear. Deekin looked away, reminded sharply of how Goat-man looked, all suddenly soft and vulnerable, whenever he thought Boss needed help or holding up.

"Find out anything useful?" Dakesh asked idly.

He was perched on a barrel, his sword across his knees. He had said little while the Seer prayed, and had even looked away when the air around her had crackled and turned white. Imloth had hovered close to her, Deekin had noticed, and had a few times stopped himself going to her, and then glared at the space between his feet. The air was dusty and old in the storeroom, and Deekin had sneezed at least three times already. Under that, he could smell the mercenary's warm, metal scent, and the clinging, dry-rock smell of the drow.

"Yes," the Seer said eventually. She leaned her forehead against Imloth's for a brief moment. "Jaiyan is not far. The problem is this, though. She's in a tunnel."

"A tunnel? What's she doing in there?" Dakesh demanded.

"Hiding," the Seer answered. "She's alone, possibly injured, and exhausted."

"There's tunnels running all the way through this place. You really going to be able to point us in the direction of the right one?"

"Not quite." The Seer smoothed a thick white lock away from her face. "I can take us close."

Dakesh grunted. "Better than nothing. Let's go, then. Before some enterprising guard decides to come snooping."

Outside, the corridor proved mercifully free of company. Deekin hopped along behind the mercenary, noticed that he was watching Imloth less now, keeping his gaze more on the walls and floors. A quick trip down curving stairs, and the Seer nodded, steering them down the left of two passageways. There, a contingent of guards waited, braced behind wooden barricades. Deekin called a lightning spell first, and winced when it whistled past the side of Dakesh's head. The mercenary lurched away, took the time to glare over his shoulder, then catapulted himself at the barricades. A hairsbreadth quicker, Imloth vaulted over the first one and crashed into the guards. Deekin heard them scream, and the sound of Imloth's sword shearing through leather and cloth.

Dakesh kicked the last barricade aside while Imloth ventured further along. Following, Deekin grinned sheepishly up at the mercenary. "Deekin sorry about the lightning bolt…"

Dakesh snorted. "I quite like my eyebrows, kobold. And my ears. Keep that in mind."

"Deekin will."

With the Seer guiding, they wound a patient, twisting route through the corridors. Deekin wondered how they were ever going to find their way out again, and then remembered the drow had arrived by portal, so perhaps getting out and home would not be so difficult. _Don't start thinking it's easy_, he thought. _Need to find Boss first. Then Goat-man. _Then_ it gets easy. _

Except that he had a tickling suspicion that this cambion slaver with the snake-sounding name would be waiting for them. Still, he was in the company of a tiefling and two drow, and the cambion could not be bigger than the arch-devil he had helped defeat in Waterdeep. _Yes_, _but that was back when Goat-man was up and fighting and swinging that huge flail. _Deekin trusted the drow and the mercenary, but they were simply not as _big_ as Goat-man, not nearly as grumpy, and not carrying weapons that were even close to how huge and nasty Devil's Bane looked.

Boss might be on the move, so she could not be hurt all that badly, but Goat-man might need patching up and helping. The horrible idea surfaced, that maybe they would have to carry Goat-man.

"Dakesh?"

"Hmm?"

"How much you weigh?"

"What?" The mercenary gave him a distracted glance. "I don't know. Why?"

"Well, how much weight can you carry?"

"What?" The mercenary blinked. "What are you talking about?"

Deekin shrugged. "Well, Goat-man might be hurt. And he be, well…big."

"We'll manage."

Deekin trailed along behind him, fervently hoping he was right. Up ahead, more barricades were thrown across the passageway. Crossbow bolts whined out, and Dakesh shoved Deekin to one side. He stumbled, righted himself against the wall, and looked up in time to see the mercenary diving beneath another bolt. The Seer called for them all to drop flat, and white light cracked out. Deekin smelled flesh burning, and heard leather curling and snapping. He opened his eyes, saw the eight guards prone and smoking, their hands locked around their weapons.

Dakesh eyed the carnage thoughtfully, but he said nothing. He led them between the barricades, and down another steep flight of stairs. The next corridor was high and arched, and Deekin tasted blood on the air. It smelled like a battlefield, but the stone beneath his feet was not marked. Unsettled, he matched pace with the mercenary and muttered, "Deekin not like it down here."

"You're not the only one." Dakesh threw him a harried, tight kind of a grin. "We're a ways underground now, I'd wager."

The Seer paused beside them, and her eyes fluttered half-closed.

"What is it?" Dakesh looked at Imloth. "Well?"

Imloth shook his head. "Wait."

They moved beneath another arch, and Imloth stepped back, slipped his free arm around the Seer's waist. Deekin looked past the mercenary's leg, and saw a third arch not far ahead. Beneath the line of the archway itself, a small metal grill was sunk into the floor, thick with rust.

"There," the Seer said, sounding curiously detached. "That will take us down into the tunnels."

"And your friend is where down there?" Dakesh asked.

"Close." The Seer leaned heavily against Imloth. "To the north."

Dakesh crouched, tapped the point of his sword against the edge of the grill. There was no ring to be grasped. Cautiously, he slid his hand between the metal bars and pulled. With a sucking sound and a rush of damp, fetid air, the grill lifted.

Deekin wrinkled his nose, peered down into unbroken darkness. "That not be very big."

Dakesh's dark eyes were trained on the small black square. "No."

"I'll go," Imloth said, quietly. "You find somewhere to hole up, and I'll go."

"What?" Dakesh scowled. "Why just you?"

"You won't fit down there."

Looking again at the gap in the stone, Deekin silently agreed. There was no way the mercenary was going to get his shoulders through that kind of space. "Boss always said it be really stupid, splitting up."

"It usually is." Imloth rubbed a hand across his eyes. "Listen. _You_ can't fit," he said to the mercenary. "Deekin's wings will get in the way. I can move quicker down there alone, and I can see in the dark."

"Now, you just listen, drow…"

"There's no time," Imloth said, sharper. "Find somewhere, block the door, and wait for me."

"Where?"

"The next guard room along. There should be weapons, and you might be able to lock the door as well."

"This is foolishness," Dakesh snapped. "And if you don't come back?"

"Then you keep looking. Find another tunnel. One you _can_ fit into," the drow added. He looked at the Seer then, and Deekin saw raw desperation in his pale eyes. "This is the right choice, isn't it?"

"It's the only choice," she answered. "Jaiyan is down there somewhere."

"Yes. I just…"

"I know." The Seer dug around in her pack, pressed what looked like a small, clear stone into his hands. "Take this."

"What is it?"

"It will give you light." She smiled. "It will give Jaiyan light."

"Alright." He squared his shoulders, and Deekin thought he saw something very like apprehension in him.

Still, he could hardly blame the drow; he would not have wanted to drop down into that tunnel, all murky and utterly black. He wondered again where Boss was, and if she was really all that close, and if she was completely in the dark or not. "Imloth?"

"Yes, Deekin?"

"Please…" He drew in a quick, painful breath. "Please find Boss."

"I will." Imloth perched on the edge, let his feet dangle over. He glanced up at the Seer, and looked as if he wanted to say something. Deekin had seen that kind of look before, between Goat-man and Boss, in Lith My'athar and in Cania. He knew that it meant the drow thought they might not see each other again. This was a kind of goodbye, just in case the worst happened.

"We'll be waiting," the Seer said softly. "Be safe, Imloth."

Deekin watched as the drow dropped gracefully down. He heard the slight noise as he landed on stone somewhere below. For a too-brief moment, he could see the top of Imloth's head, but then he vanished, swallowed up by the darkness.

"Come on." Dakesh's hand on his shoulder, then jostling him away. "We need to move."

The Seer knelt, and lifted the grill back into place. Answering the mercenary's startled look, she explained, "Leave that open, and he'll have as many guards after him who can fit down there. You know that."

"Yes, but…" Dakesh shook his head. "Never mind. I suppose he'll be able to open it from the other side."

The Seer said nothing, only motioned them down the corridor. Dakesh led, sword drawn, while Deekin primed his crossbow. He felt curiously isolated now they were missing Imloth, unprotected somehow. _Which is stupid_, he thought. _You and Dakesh were doing just fine before the drow turned up. _Which was true, but even so, he thought of Imloth crawling along in the blackness and shivered. _Hope he finds Boss soon. _

The door at the third archway along led through to a guard-room and a group of shocked-looking men in mail. Dakesh mowed through three of them brutally fast. Two others fell, shot through the chest and throat. The last three buckled beneath the Seer's spells. Deekin slung his crossbow back over his shoulder, saw that the room was small and lined with wooden shelves. Chests were pushed up against the remaining wall, and he saw rolled bundles of bolts on the nearest weapon rack.

"I suppose this will do." Dakesh started heaving the bodies out through the door, winced when he tried to lift a broad-framed guard with one hand. The Seer stooped to help him, and, much to Deekin's surprise, the mercenary let her. The small drow woman was lean and lithe, like most of her people, Deekin supposed. Still, he was used to seeing her in robes, or nestled up against Imloth's shoulder, or in the temple in Lith My'athar with her face serene and her words comforting. Seeing her kneeling down in leathers and getting her beautiful, ebony hands dirty was odd, in the same way Deekin would find it odd if Boss turned down free ale and asked for tea instead.

Dakesh bolted the door from the inside, and rolled a barrel up against it as well. He did the same with the door across the room, then paced enough that it made Deekin's feet ache just watching him. "Dakesh?"

"Hmm?"

"Stop pacing."

The mercenary paused mid-stride. "I'm impatient."

"Deekin noticed." Deekin jumped up onto a barrel, peered up into the mercenary's face. "You be worried?"

Dakesh sighed. "I'm worried that we're gambling your friend's safety on whether or not that damn drow will get through those tunnels and back again, and all in one piece."

"He will," the Seer said softly.

"Easy for you to tell me that." Dakesh tapped his sword hilt. "I just think we've been down here too long already. Azraleth is waiting somewhere for us, and now we've split up, and we're still no closer to finding your friends."

Deekin knew that, even if he did not care to dwell on it. The Seer curled up near one of the doors, sitting cross-legged, and Deekin noticed her running the fingers of one hand through a loose sheaf of hair, again and again. _Even she's nervous_, he realised. He swallowed, and to distract himself, he said, "Dakesh?"

The mercenary grunted. "Yes?"

"Deekin wonders…got any interesting stories?"

"I'm sorry?" Dakesh blinked tired-looking eyes. "We're sitting here, in this damn fortress, just _waiting_ to die, and you want me to tell you a story?"

Deekin thought about it. "Yes?"

"Should I dare ask why?"

"Well…Deekin be writer as well as bard. Deekin likes stories. Deekin not know many stories about Sigil, except what Goat-man tells him."

"You write," Dakesh repeated. "What have you written, then?"

"Whole book about Boss and Deekin's first big adventure." He grinned. "Book be all about Anauroch Desert and flying Netherese cities and how Boss killed a medusa lady and got turned into statue and how Deekin got away from Old Master."

"Right."

"Deekin been meaning to write up notes about other adventure, in the Underdark and Cania and Waterdeep. Deekin not had the time lately, though."

"Yes, I imagine storming fortresses owned by cambions doesn't leave much time for high art."

Deekin peered up at him suspiciously. "You be making fun of Deekin."

The mercenary smirked. "Maybe just a little." He rolled his shoulders, and tapped his sword hilt again. "Alright," he conceded. "One story. To keep you quiet and keep me from going mad."

Deekin grinned. "What if Imloth and Boss not back and the story's finished? Got any others?"

"You're pushing your luck, kobold."

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The stone was damp and cold through Jaiyan's leggings, and her back was one big ache. Overhead, the roof of the tunnel had barely lifted, though the floor had sloped up before leveling out again. Both her hands were scuffed and bleeding, and she was certain the throbbing lump on the back of her head would turn out to be huge. _Stupid tunnel_. _Stupid low tunnel with a low roof and no room to move. Stupid you for getting in it. _Still, given the lack of space, she supposed most of the guards she had seen would not be able to wriggle in after her.

Her more pressing problem was the torch, and how the small yellow flame was horribly close to dying. She did not fancy crawling along blind, but she supposed she would soon have no choice either way. Her knee skimmed over gravel, and she swore. She had muttered her way through the lewdest and nastiest of Deekin's ballads, along with a few she had learned at Hilltop. But no matter how many crude verses she stumbled through, the tunnel kept going, and she tried not to think about whether she was hopelessly lost.

_That bastard of a cambion _would_ do something like this_, she thought. _Have tunnels that go nowhere. _

Maybe she would find herself soon staring at a blank wall, and she would have to crawl all the way back. Maybe the floor would open up underneath her, and she would find herself falling into some pit full of spikes. Maybe she would starve to death down here.

"Oh, stop it," she said aloud.

The floor was sloping up again, she noticed. She held the wavering torch out ahead of her, saw more stone extending away, and thick dust in the air. She quickened her pace, growling out another obscenity when she scuffed her hand against the wall. Her stomach was roiling, and she tried not to think about food. She decided that if she survived this, she was never again going to turn down second helpings.

Her feet skidded against more gravel, and the torch juddered worryingly. The flame was nearly gone, a tiny tongue of light. _Oh, gods, it's going to be very dark in here very soon_. Jaiyan shook herself and carried on, trying to move as quickly as she could, half crawling and half sliding herself along. She scraped the back of her knuckles against the floor again, and winced. She _hated_ that kind of burning, barely-bleeding graze. _At least with proper injuries you can allow for swearing and snarling. _

The tunnel snapped around to the left, following the sharp lines of a sudden corner. She edged gingerly around, was relieved to see nothing but blank walls again. She swapped the torch to her other hand again, and swore aloud when the flame sputtered. The skin between her shoulders crawled. She was expecting it, but she still gasped when the flame flicked out.

"Wonderful," she muttered at the cloaking, unsettling darkness. She dropped the torch, fumbled for the satchel. Inside, she felt her way past the healing potions to the whiskey. She clinked the neck of the bottle against her teeth, grimaced, and swallowed. Another gulp, and she forced herself to shove the bottle back into the satchel. The inside of her mouth stung, and the whiskey had hit her empty stomach far too hard.

"Alright." She listened, could hear nothing but her own sped breathing. "Nothing else for it. Get moving."

Reaching out blindly, she felt the cold stone ahead of her, the walls on either side. She _knew_ what the tunnel looked like; had been staring at it for gods who knew how long now. But she could not quite shake the horrible, unmooring sensation of being suddenly blind.

Much slower, she edged her way forward. With nothing to look at but darkness, her thoughts ran wild. She saw Valen first, as he had been in Waterdeep and the Underdark, before the cambion had strung him up against the wall. _Tall, pale, and with _that_ look in his eyes. _Not for the first time, she wondered what her mother might have said about her taste in men. _Horns and a tail…bet Mother never thought of that one. _

Deekin followed, tiny and skinny and filled up with excitement. If he _was_ here, _was_ somewhere in this damned fortress, then she had to move all the quicker, had to find him before something awful happened to him. He was brave and had the determination of granite when he chose, but he was still so _small_. Jaiyan growled to herself and moved faster. Her elbow bumped the wall. She straightened up a little too far, and the back of her head thumped into the stone overhead.

The memory rose in her mind, of meeting Nathyrra in Undermountain. How she had cringed at the thought of following the drow through a small gap in the rock, on the way to rescue Halaster the mad wizard. _Before you ever met Valen_, her thoughts supplied unhelpfully. _And when you did, he held a knife to your throat._

She grinned in the darkness. _Need to rescue him just to laugh at him about being rescued. _And after that, she resolved that she would likely not ever let him leave her sight again. _Even if it really, really annoys him._

Jaiyan stopped, ran her hand along the wall. She felt pitted stone and clinging dust. And heard, not far away, something moving. _Something moving quietly_, she thought. _Very quietly. _The soft, not-quite-there sound of something scraping, leather against stone, maybe. Perhaps her ears were playing tricks. Perhaps she was disoriented in the darkness, and imagining things. She inched forward, fingers spread against the stone. She heard it again, that tiny scraping sound, then the slight clink of metal, maybe a buckle, touching the wall.

_What exactly are you going to do if there's something in here with you? Hide? Hit it with the satchel and hope it goes away? _She figured anything trapped with her could not possibly be very big, but somehow the thought felt short of reassuring.

Again, the sound, softer, and she closed her eyes. _Blind down here in any case,_ she thought desperately. A moment later, she snapped them open again, heart pounding. She slid a trembling hand forward, paused, and felt the air move against her fingers. _Whatever the hells it is, it's moving. Towards me. Slowly. _She clenched her fingers and tried to think straight. _You're in a narrow, low tunnel. You can't see a damn thing. You're lost. You don't know where Valen is. And something's coming towards you. _Not_ helpful. _

She found the wall again, slipped her hand along it until she felt it disappear into a sharp corner. Edging forward, she lined her shoulders up against the stone and gripped the corner. _Whatever's in here, it's just in front of me. _She stilled her breathing, listened. Heard again that tiniest motion against the stone floor, and something that was perhaps a slow intake of breath.

_Great. Do I just sit here and waste away waiting to find out what that is? _Suddenly tired of cringing in the darkness, Jaiyan uncoiled and launched herself around the corner. She crashed into something small and slim and warm, and gasped when wiry arms locked around her and caught her. She felt leather, and something metal digging into the small of her back. She thrashed, tried to shove away, but the arms squeezed tighter. She kicked out backwards, heard a grunt when her foot connected with solid muscle.

One of the hands moved, found her chin and gripped hard. "It's me," a low voice snapped. "I'm not going to hurt you."

_She knew that voice. _Still rigid, feeling ragged breaths against her cheek, she ransacked her thoughts. Low, male, urgent, and slightly accented. But all she could think of was the cambion, and Valen, and the tiefling's face when the cambion had dragged her out of the cell.

"Get off me!" She wrenched away, and heard him gasp. She landed another kick against leather armour and buckles, and felt him twist away from her.

"Jaiyan, stop!"

She froze, and something at the back of her mind shouted at her. _No, can't be, can't be here, why would he be here on his own? _The wall was cold behind her shoulders, and she heard him moving. She opened her mouth to snarl at him, and blinked when bright light flooded the tunnel. She squinted, and saw dark hands clasped around a glowing stone. Dragging her gaze up, she saw that the severe angles of his face were coal-black, the hair fringing his cheeks white. "_Imloth?_"

He rocked back on his heels and sighed. "Yes."

"What in the name of all that is unholy are _you_ doing _here?_"

He gave her a crooked grin. "It's a long story."

Jaiyan swept her hair out of her eyes and tried to will her heartbeat back to normal. "You could have said it was you."

"I couldn't see you until you came around the corner. I didn't know what I was going to find," he said, mildly.

"Stupid drow," she muttered. "Scared the hells out of me. And _you're_ the one who can see in the dark, _apparently._ Just so you know, saying 'it's me' when the person you've just ambushed is completely blind is not the best way to do things." She looked past the point of light, into his pale eyes. "Good to see you, though."

"And you, Jaiyan." His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "I did not ambush you. You threw yourself around the corner at me and punched me in the throat."

"Yes, well, I was bored of waiting for you to move first. And I elbowed you in the throat. I didn't punch you."

"What's the difference?"

She grinned, a little ruefully. "Ah…the elbow hurts more."


	22. Chapter 22

_**Chapter Twenty-Two – Introductions**_

Jaiyan followed Imloth, her eyes fixed on the way his white hair swayed over his narrow shoulders. She gripped the glowing stone in one hand and tried not to ask him too many questions at once. "How did you know to come here?"

"The Seer had a dream."

"She's here too?"

"Yes." He paused long enough to cast a quick smile over his shoulder. "She's with Deekin."

"_Deekin?_" Sudden, fierce hope leaped into her chest. She grabbed one of the buckles on his armour and pulled. "Imloth? Deekin's here?"

He turned around, nodded. "Yes, he's here. He's alright. He got inside with the help of a mercenary. Tiefling."

"Tiefling?" Too many thoughts were rushing through her mind. "How did he manage that?"

Imloth laughed. "You'll have to ask him. Come on. The longer we linger, the longer they're waiting for us."

"Yes, but…"

"Later," he said firmly. He clasped her hand, squeezed, and gently pried her off his armour. "It's good to see you alive."

"You know, I'm tempted to hug you, but your armour looks...slightly sharp." She grinned helplessly. "You have no idea how pleased I am to see you."

Imloth's smile widened. He swiveled back round, and Jaiyan felt an irrational prickle of jealousy at how gracefully he moved despite the cramped space. She trailed after him, swallowing back the urge to attack him with more questions. _How in the Nine Hells had he found her? How had Deekin done it? Who got here first, Deeks or the drow? Who was Deekin's mysterious ally? And how soon could they start rescuing Valen and beating the living hells out of the cambion?_

Jaiyan shook her head, exhaled slowly. _Calm down. Just follow Imloth and get yourself to Deekin. _"Imloth?"

"Yes?"

"This is all my fault."

He halted again, and shot her a stern look. "Stop. Now."

"No, I…." She blinked, and scowled. "I'm sorry. I just…_I_ wanted to come here. And now…look at it. _You_ had to drag yourselves away from Waterdeep, and come to this place, and rescue me."

Imloth laughed softly, twisted around again. The harsh light glanced off the sharp lines of his face, and she saw him squinting slightly. "Listen to me. This tunnel is very low, and very small, and I am developing a horrible ache in my back. So I am only going to say this once, do you understand?"

"Yes."

"The Seer would do anything for Valen. And she will never forget what you did for her, in Lith My'athar. And since I quite prefer the world with the two of you still living in it, I would, as well." He touched her shoulder, and the side of her face. "Stop worrying. We'll find him."

The drow moved off ahead of her, and she chewed the inside of her cheek anxiously. _All very well for him to tell me everything's alright. He's not the one being rescued. He's not the one who thought coming to Sigil would be an exciting idea. He's not the one who got Valen captured. _

"Come on," Imloth called gently. "Besides, if I don't get you back safely, I don't think Durnan will ever let me inside his tavern again."

Jaiyan choked on a sudden laugh. "How is he?"

Imloth shrugged. "What's the word? Cranky?"

"Sounds like him." She shuffled along behind the drow, matching his pace and wondering how he managed to crawl so quickly without scuffing his hands against the floor. _Because he's a drow, _her thoughts unhelpfully supplied. "You're still there?"

"At The Yawning Portal? Yes. He hasn't thrown us out yet."

"You must be doing something right."

Imloth snorted. "If I have to go back there and tell him you got yourself killed, I doubt any prior behaviour will matter. So please do me a favour and _try_ to stay alive."

They continued on in silence, with Jaiyan listening to the scrape of her knees against the floor, and the slight creaking sounds from Imloth's armour. _Must be a strange time in your life, _she thought wryly. _Generally most people are not pleased to be ambushed by drow in close quarters. Yes, but most people don't spend months at a time in drow cities or ambling around the Underdark. _

The tunnel veered away to the right, and then up at a steep angle. Imloth motioned with one hand for her to slow down. She peered past his narrow shoulder, saw that the walls unraveled ahead, vanishing into blank darkness. Overhead, the roof had lifted, and light poured down, printing pale lines onto the floor.

"That's the way up?"

"Yes." Imloth edged forward, cast a wary glance up.

Trailing him, Jaiyan saw the rusted edges of a grill. "How did you know which way to go?"

"The Seer."

There was room enough to stand beneath the grill, and Jaiyan gauged the distance up to it. "Can you reach it?"

"I think so. Stay here." Imloth eyed the wall, settled his shoulders. He traced his hand over small pitted marks in the stone. His gaze flicked up to the grill again. With both hands, he gripped the wall, nine inches or so above his head. Jaiyan saw his right foot catch against the wall further down, and he vaulted himself up. His right hand pulled free first, and he pushed up at the grill. When it gave way, he seized the edge of stone beneath and heaved himself up.

"That's not fair." Jaiyan stared up, scowling as he eeled up and out. She waited, heard him draw his sword. "Imloth?"

He appeared again, crouching down. "Lean up. I'll pull you out."

"I'm heavier than I look." She stretched both hands up, grasped his wrist. He hauled, and she tried to push off with her heels. There was a horrible, floundering moment when she was aware of her legs dangling, and then the edge dug into her side, and she was half-dragged, half-helped out.

"You're not that heavy." Imloth grinned. "I once had to carry a soldier in full armour after he'd fallen in a lake, with an arrow in his side."

Jaiyan stumbled upright, checked her elbows for new grazes. "Did he live?"

"Yes, actually. Though I was tempted more than once to strip off his armour and just hope." He checked the corridor again. "Are you alright?"

"Yes. But I think my back is experiencing some kind of revelation. It seems a lifetime since I've been able to stand up straight."

He smiled. "I want to ask exactly how you found yourself down there, but we don't have time." His hand dropped to his belt, and he unhooked a short-bladed sword. "Here. Take this. It's not the best, but it'll do until we find the others, and it's better quality than what you're carrying."

"I stole it off a guard. I was in no position to whine about inferior weapons." She accepted the sword hilt-first, studied it thoughtfully. Sliding it free, she found that the blade was slim and scrolled with twisting designs. "Pretty."

"High praise." Sword held low, Imloth led down the corridor, eyes on the door at the far end. "Come on. Not much further."

Jaiyan shadowed him, and tried to force her thoughts away from Valen. Part of her wanted to rush off and find him as soon as humanly possible. _No_, she thought_. Now you have time to regroup, and actually work out a plan. _

Under the third archway, Imloth paused. "If I'm right, there should a guard room through here. And if I'm still right, that's where they'll have holed up."

"And if you're not right?"

"You'll have to hope I can take on a whole contingent on my own."

She almost protested, but she knew he was correct; she was tired enough that her hand was trembling around the sword hilt, and her stomach was complaining again.

Imloth flipped his sword around, slammed the pommel against the door. "Dakesh? It's Imloth. Let us in."

Jaiyan stepped up beside him, strained to listen. She heard a muffled reply, something about how if he was lying, he would be gutted, and someone else, someone female, ordering that the door be opened, and right now. There was an impatient moment while wood squeaked, and eventually the clank of the bolt. The door opened, she heard running feet, and then her arms were full of excited, wriggling kobold.

"Boss!" Deekin wrapped himself around her, burrowed his head against her shoulder. "Boss…"

She was vaguely aware of Imloth ushering her into the room beyond, and the door closing and locking again behind her. She levered Deekin off her slightly, looked down into his narrow face and black eyes. "Oh, gods. Deeks…you're alright."

"_Boss_ be telling _Deekin_ that?" He grinned up at her, all teeth. "Deekin not be the one imprisoned."

"I know." Her knees gave way, and she found herself on the floor with Deekin curled up against her, his wings in her face and his head digging against her side. Her throat felt suddenly too thick, and her eyes burned. "Deekin, I am so sorry."

"Don't be, Boss." Deekin pried himself away, looked seriously at her. "Deekin stormed demon fortress, Boss. And Deekin met Dakesh."

Despite herself, she laughed. He was close to exploding with eager energy, and she knew then just _how much_ she had missed him. "Who's Dakesh?"

"This be Dakesh." Deekin motioned at the tall, dark-haired man standing near one of the barrels. "He be the one who shouted through the door at Imloth. Deekin just be listening to story about how he fell through a window and broke his shoulder once."

"Quite the charmer, then." Jaiyan swiped a hand across her eyes. She tilted her head back, saw that the man was very pale, with a face that was made up of sharp angles and hard lines. He had that odd, somehow feline look that she had begun to associate with tieflings since arriving in Sigil. His eyes were a deep, challenging brown, and she realised that she had seen him before. "I know you, don't I?"

"I was with the escort group."

"You spoke to Valen about his flail. And he actually spoke back."

"Yes." The dark brown eyes narrowed. "When you both vanished, I never thought you'd been stupid enough to get yourselves caught. Thought you might've done the sensible thing and just left the city."

Jaiyan smirked. "You're still here now."

Dakesh nodded, looked down at Deekin. "I think I like her."

The kobold nudged her shoulder. "Boss be hungry?"

"Starving."

Deekin hopped away from her, started rummaging through his pack. She rocked back on her heels and finally noticed the Seer. She stood very close to Imloth, one arm around his waist, and her head against his. "Seer, I…did not expect to see you again so soon."

The Seer smiled and gently disengaged herself from Imloth. "The circumstances leave much to be desired, but it is good to see you again, Jaiyan."

"Likewise." She straightened up, and grimaced when she pulled the half-healed whip-marks on her back.

"You're hurt." The Seer's cool fingers brushed her hand. "Let me see."

"I'm fine," Jaiyan muttered. "Got some healing potions, in any case."

"Let me see," the drow woman said again, firmer.

Jaiyan grunted something close to approval, and the Seer stepped behind her. Slid her hands up under Jaiyan's half-ruined shirt, peeling the fabric away. The air touched her skin, and she felt abruptly self-conscious. Dakesh was facing the other way, and Imloth seemed suddenly very interested in his boots, but she still felt heat rush up her neck. _Don't be stupid, _she thought. _She's just pulled the back of it up. They couldn't see anything even if they were looking. _

"Boss…" Deekin's hushed, painful gasp jarred her. "Boss, what _happened?_"

"He flogged me," she said, and the words seemed strange, too raw. "He flogged me in front of Valen."

The Seer's fingers trailed along her ribs, up to her shoulders. "Stay still." There was a rush of tingling warmth, along with a murmured incantation. The drow traced the length of her back again. "There will be some scarring, but no internal damage."

Jaiyan nodded briskly, jerked her shirt down as the Seer glided away. Answering Deekin's inquiring look, she said, "_He_ gave the potions to me. Guess he wanted me to be able to stand upright for another lashing."

"Boss…" Deekin shook his head. "No time. Eat now, and Boss can talk later."

He pressed something wrapped into her hands. She looked down, uncovered cold salted meat. It was tough, and took some chewing to get it all down, but she tore through it. A flask of water followed, along with a couple of slightly wrinkled apples.

"More food later," Deekin told her. "Too much, and Boss will not feel good."

He was right, but she was still tempted to rip the pack off his shoulders and find out what else he was carrying around that might be edible. Imloth murmured to the Seer that maybe they should wait a short while, give Jaiyan a chance to rest and gather herself a little, let the food settle in her stomach even. The tiefling mercenary agreed, but added that they did not have long, not if they wanted to survive. So, perilously close to exhaustion again, Jaiyan curled up against one of the barrels with Deekin next to her. "Gods, I am so tired."

"Sleep later," Deekin suggested. "Save Goat-man first."

"Yes. Deeks, how the hells did you do this?"

"Long story," he answered. "Dakesh help Deekin a lot."

She eyed the mercenary again, taking in his lean shape and shock of thick, almost black hair. His poise near the door was coiled and wary, and reminded her of Valen. "You know, to stop myself going completely insane, I think I sang every song you've ever written."

Deekin's nose crinkled. "Boss _sang?_ Thought Boss always told _not_ to sing?"

She clipped his shoulder lightly. "Like anyone could hear me. I even sang that really vulgar one about the drow priestess, the incubus and the paladin."

"Deekin not write that one. Deekin just…find it. Somewhere."

"Of course you did." She smirked. "You've got a filthy imagination when you set your mind to it, Master Kobold."

Imloth leaned on the barrel above her, holding something folded beneath one arm. "Take this, and put it on," he said, in a tone that brooked no complaint. "You're not even dressed for sparring right now, so don't bother arguing."

Jaiyan accepted it, fumbled with the ties. Black leather spilled across her hands, studded with rivets at wrist and elbow and shoulder. "Is this yours?"

Imloth nodded. "Well, I wore some old armour of yours once, in Waterdeep. Consider this returning the favour."

"You did?" She shrugged the leather tunic on over her shoulders, tugged it down. It was a shade broad across the shoulders, but the cut was distinctly drow, and reminded her of the leathers she had bought in Lith My'athar, a lifetime ago. She yanked the laces on the cuffs tighter and conceded that the tunic fit well for the most part. "When?"

"When his own armour had been sheared almost apart by a pit fiend," the Seer said archly.

"Sheared apart?" Imloth grimaced. "It wasn't…sheared apart."

"No, it just had a hole in it longer than your forearm."

Jaiyan laughed. She straightened up, rearranged her belt. "I guess Durnan let you know exactly what he thought of that?"

"Oh, yes. He's a cruel man."

Dakesh swung away from the door, eyes narrow. "This is all very, very touching, but shouldn't we be working out exactly what we should be doing next?"

"Valen's in a cell," Jaiyan said helplessly. "Probably still chained to the wall."

"Keys?"

"Deekin can sing the locks," the little kobold pointed out. "Just need to find Goat-man."

"And Azraleth?" Dakesh demanded.

Deekin tapped Jaiyan's arm. "That be the cambion."

"Oh, so the bastard's got a name, has he?" She grinned, sharp and bleak. "Anything falls, if you hit it hard enough. He knows Valen. If he's been getting reports of you lot marauding around, I'd say he'd be bright enough to make the connection."

"Deekin be surprised if Azraleth doesn't get reports. We set one of his gates on fire."

"Oh, gods, really?" Jaiyan giggled, and tried to calm herself down. "That's…not really funny, is it?"

"No," Dakesh said. One side of his mouth twitched. "It's really not."

"I can find him," the Seer said thoughtfully. "He's…deeper in. On his own, at the moment."

"Alright." The mercenary squared his shoulders. "The longer we linger here, the longer your friend's in trouble. Let's move."

Jaiyan shoved up to her feet, groaned. "As soon as we get out of here, I'm going to sleep for a year." She watched as the mercenary opened the door, Imloth beside him. "Deekin, where exactly did you find him?"

"Dakesh?"

"Yes."

Deekin shrugged. "By a canal. In a tunnel. Why Boss asks?"

"Just wondering." She observed a moment longer, while the tiefling and the drow prowled out into the corridor.

Imloth called back an all-clear, and Deekin reached out, grasped her hand. "Boss ready to find Goat-man?"

"No, I'm absolutely terrified." _Terrified that we'll get there and find the cambion, and have to fight him. That we'll get there and he'll be really hurt. That we'll get there and he'll be dead. _She drew in a steadying breath, and did not let go of Deekin's hand until they were through the door. "Yes. I'm ready."

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Azraleth dug his claws into the edge of the table and contemplated simply slaughtering the wizard who sat with his head bent over a bowl of water. He had corridors full of dead guards, vague rumours about drow, and now the damn wizard was taking too long to cast his spell.

"Master?"

He swung around, glared at the guard who stood near the door, eyes cast down. "Yes, what?"

"I've doubled the patrols."

"And the tiefling?"

"Asleep, when I checked."

"Good." He wondered again if Valen Shadowbreath knew they were coming for him, knew they were inside the prison levels and cutting their way through every guard room and armoury and stairwell. "Is it done?" he barked at the wizard.

"Yes, Master." White light rippled up from the water. "They're moving in from the south."

"How many?"

"Five." The wizard's fingers tightened on the bowl. "A tiefling, a human, two drow, and…a kobold."

"A _kobold?_" What were they doing with a kobold? Azraleth growled. He was not worried. _Not _worried, merely furious and waiting to kill these fools who thought they could steal Valen Shadowbreath from him. He had been down to the tiefling's cell again, had accompanied eight guards while they swept through the passageways, searching for the interlopers.

He had not really had time to properly talk to the tiefling, had simply seen that he was still breathing. He had swept in, and pressed the blood-splashed coil of hair cut from the tiefling's woman into the tiefling's sweat-slick palm. The sudden, stripped look of horror on his face had _almost_ made up for how Azraleth had to stalk out again, and leave the tiefling to his own imagination. Still, he knew how a prisoner's thoughts could turn against them, leave them thinking far worse than he could ever say.

Years ago, Grimash't had once told him the simplest, laziest way of provoking a response out of a prisoner was to threaten, then vanish, leaving them to the mercy of their own thoughts.

"The human," Azraleth said. "A woman?"

"Yes," the wizard answered. "Young. Brown hair."

"I _know_." His hands clenched again. "They _found _her." _How_ in the _Hells_ had they done that? "Tell me about the drow."

"A male and a female. The female…she's some kind of spellcaster."

_Explains the fire,_ he thought. But who had drow as allies, drow willing to come to Sigil? What had Valen Shadowbreath been _doing _all this time? _Doesn't matter_. _They'll be dead and bleeding their dark drow blood all over the floor before the day's out. _"I want every gateway out of the prison blocked off."

The guard stirred behind him. "Yes, Master."

He would not have time to get down there before they did, he realised. He growled and wondered if it might have been better to have simply slit Valen Shadowbreath's throat and left him hanging there for his beloved girl to find. "The tiefling's cell…I want the corridor barricaded at the north end."

"You want us to let them get there?"

"No. But if they _do_, I want them trapped." He uncurled his fingers, exhaled sharply. "No prisoners. I want them dead. All of them."

"The tiefling too?"

"As long as he's shackled, he can stay breathing." He snapped out at the wizard, "What are they carrying?"

"Swords, mostly. The kobold's got a crossbow. The male drow has a bow, but he's not been using it."

"I want every guard down there priming crossbows." When the guard nodded briskly, he added, "Don't engage them hand-to-hand. Just fill the corridor with bolts and wait for them to drop."

"Yes, Master." The guard shuffled one foot. "Where will you be, Master?"

Azraleth grinned. "On my way down. I expect them all dead, do you understand me?"

"Yes, Master." The guard ducked his head and waited for Azraleth to gesture before turning away.

Azraleth breathed out slowly again, and willed his needling impatience to fade. If this worked, he would be able to stroll into the tiefling's cell over the corpses of his fallen companions, and show him just how futile hope could be. _Yes_, he thought fiercely. _Show him his woman, dead, along with his friends. _And if the tiefling died in the chaos, well, he could call the problem done and finished.

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Jaiyan crept forward, matching pace with Imloth, her eyes cast past Dakesh's rangy form and down the slope of the corridor. The strange, hanging stillness in the air unsettled her. She kept expecting to hear guards thundering down towards them, or maybe the twang and hiss of loosed arrows. "Deekin?"

"Yes, Boss?"

"Does this feel like a trap to you?"

"Yep."

"Good. Just checking."

But Valen was down here somewhere, and she had the prickling suspicion that they were getting closer. They had run into very little resistance, not counting the half-dozen guards they had surprised on their way through another storeroom.

The corridor ran down to an archway, and disappeared around a sharp corner. Jaiyan breathed in, tried to loosen some of the tightness from her shoulders. _Wish they'd just get it over with,_ she thought grumpily. _Just attack us and get on with it. _

"Stop," Imloth murmured. He exchanged a quick look with Dakesh, and the two of them edged up to the corner. There was a tenuous moment while the drow swapped his sword to his off-hand, and then leaned against the corner. Watching, Jaiyan guessed that from the other side, any waiting guard would see the top inch or so of his shoulder.

Metal clicked sharply somewhere down the corridor, and Imloth threw himself away from the corner. Six crossbow bolts sliced out, smacked hard into the opposite wall.

"Wonderful," Dakesh muttered sourly.

_This is it,_ Jaiyan thought. _This is where they all are, and this is where Valen has to be. _She glanced back at the Seer, was rewarded with a slight nod. "Spells," she said. "Deeks, you got anything to clear them out?"

"Yep." He wriggled forward, lined himself up with the corner. Another three bolts whipped past, bit into the stone. Deekin yelped, and the spell starting to glow on his palm sputtered out.

"Come on, kobold," Dakesh growled. "Focus."

"Being shot at not help Deekin's concentration!"

"Lean around, and I'll pull you back," the mercenary said. He wound a hand around the back of Deekin's belt. "I've got you. Now do it."

Another volley rang out, slamming against the wall and tearing out small chunks.

Deekin clasped his hands together, and murmured something soft and sonorous. Bright yellow light erupted above his linked fingers, and Jaiyan narrowed her eyes. The spell grew and fluttered, and held as he inched forwards. He blinked rapidly, and she saw his wings twitching. He leaned out a shade too far, gritted his teeth, and hurled the sparking fireball. Dakesh yanked him back, and he whimpered when a bolt snicked against the corner and tumbled away.

Pressed against the wall behind him, Jaiyan heard the rush of air and sudden thumping noise as the fireball exploded against something solid. The snapping and crackling sound of burning wood followed, along with horrible, high-pitched screams. Running feet, and a guard shouting for help.

Dakesh peered around the corner, shrugged, and said, "It's clear."

Trailing after him, Jaiyan shuddered when the harsh taste of smoke filled her mouth. Sweeping her hand in front of her face, she tried not to look at the fallen guards, tried not to look at how they were curled behind their charred barricades. She picked her way through them, heading for steps that rose under another archway.

"Move!" Imloth cannoned into her, knocking her off her feet and dragging her behind a smouldering barricade.

A hail of bolts whirred out from the archway, and she heard Dakesh swearing somewhere ahead of her. She looked desperately back, and saw Deekin huddled behind another barricade, the Seer curled beside him. Two more bolts clanged down onto the stone near her feet, and Imloth jostled her closer to the barricade. "Stay here," the drow hissed in her ear.

The air buzzed, and Jaiyan flinched back when white fire lashed out overhead. She closed her eyes against the sudden flare, heard Deekin cry out. "Deekin!"

Another tangle of energy roared past, and she saw the barricades behind her erupt into pale flame. "_Deekin!_"

She tried to wrench away from Imloth, but he snapped, "Don't you _dare_. Do you think I want Valen after my head as well as Durnan?"

"But Deekin…"

"Is too far away."

He was right. Horribly right, but she still wanted to ram her elbow into his stomach and claw past the barricade and do _something_. Another hail of bolts rattled past, two bouncing off the wooden edge above her. She twisted around, and saw Imloth's face, close to her and hauntingly still, pale eyes blank. _The Seer,_ she realised. _The Seer's back there with Deekin. _She grabbed Imloth's hand, held on as another spell screamed over them, thumped into the wall opposite. The smoke was tickling the back of her throat, and her eyes stung.

"Deekin," she yelled. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes, Boss!"

"Are you alright?"

"Sort of, Boss."

_Good,_ she thought. _Now what do we do?_ More bolts thudded into the barricade, and she knew it would not be long before they broke through. Already the wood was pitted and cracking, and smoke boiled up from the other side of it.

Imloth let go of her hand, inched himself up to the very edge of the barricade. Sweat tracked thick lines down his face. His shoulders were stiff under his armour, and she saw his eyes flickering as he judged the distance down the corridor.

"No! Imloth, don't!" A dozen crossbow bolts whined past, followed by some sizzling, white spell that burned past so close that Jaiyan tasted heat. "Imloth!"

He said nothing, but his eyes narrowed, and she saw his whole frame tense up, like a cat preparing to leap.

"Oh, no you don't!" She launched at him, wrapped both arms around his slim waist, and yanked him back. "Don't," she snapped. "If I'm not allowed to be stupidly heroic, then you're damn well not allowed to, either."

He opened his mouth to retort, but a fireball crashed into their barricade. Jaiyan scrambled back, pulling him with her, trying not to think about the panic that was flooding through her. _Nowhere to go, nothing to hide behind, they're going to kill us. _Past burning, toppling wreckage, she saw Dakesh, pressed desperately against the wall, half-hidden behind three dead guards and a jutting wooden spar. He was ashen, and she could see blood welling from a deep gash along his left thigh.

Her back hit the corridor wall, Imloth alongside her. Through thick smoke, she saw guards on the steps beneath the archway. Saw one of them turn, level his crossbow at Dakesh. Two others fixed on Imloth, a fourth on her. Some cynical, tired part of her tried to guess how long she would be able to dodge before being pinned. Imloth's hand found hers, painfully tight. His face was strangely unreadable, and she remembered how he had looked like this when Lith My'athar had been attacked, all coiled and predatory. She had time to wonder just what he was thinking before he tugged her away from the wall.

She heard Dakesh's surprised shout, and the ratcheting noise of the guards firing. One bolt whirred over her head. The second bounced up from the stone in front of her, and she lurched to one side. The third clipped Imloth's shoulder, and he stumbled. He let himself drop, taking her with him, and more bolts rattled overhead. Dakesh snarled somewhere behind, and she heard him gasping raggedly. With both knees throbbing, Jaiyan skidded against Imloth, ended up against the opposite wall, half tangled with him.

The whine of woken magic hurt her head. She looked up and past the burning barricades. To where the Seer was crouching, white energy blazing around both hands. She pushed up to her feet, and the spell unleashed. The air rang, shrill and loud. Jaiyan turned away, did not want to watch as the spell washed over the guards. Most of them did not have time to scream; they simply dropped, thudding down onto the stone and writhing.

Silence followed, taut and uncertain. Jaiyan leaned her head back against the wall. The stink of charred flesh and half-melted metal had already invaded her nose, and she knew her stomach was going to flip over as soon as she opened her mouth. _Get moving,_ she thought grimly. _You've seen worse. _

She shoved away from the wall, cringing when her knees almost buckled. The air was hazed grey with smoke. "Deekin?"

He emerged from somewhere behind the Seer, eyes round. "Deekin be alright, Boss."

She checked anyway, turning him around so she could see the line of blisters along his neck. She found bruises along the arch of his wings, and his tunic was scorched. "Does it hurt?"

"Nope. Not really." He grinned up at her. "Lady drow look after Deekin."

The Seer smiled. "Jaiyan, are you hurt?"

She shook her head. "I'm fine. Dakesh?"

The mercenary was leaning against the wall, one hand flattened against the leaking wound on his leg. More blood trailed from a ragged gash on his shoulder. "Never felt better." He smirked. "Shouldn't we be moving?"

"Wait." The Seer moved, stood in front of him before he could protest. She touched his leg gently, murmured something. While he muttered his gratitude, she turned her gaze to Imloth, saw the hole in his armour just above his shoulder. "Imloth?"

He shrugged. "Didn't break the skin."

"I'll look at it later," she said, a hint of steel in her voice. "I know you too well."

Suitably chastened, Imloth ducked his head. "It really is fine."

Dakesh laughed, but did not comment. He drew his sword, stalked up to the steps. "It's clear."

"Sure?" Deekin clicked his teeth. "Said that last time."

"You want to go first, kobold?"

"Nope. Deekin not be all big and tough like Dakesh."

The mercenary scowled down at him. "Why do I find your wide-eyed innocence somehow suspicious?"

"Because you is a mercenary and you trusts no one."

Jaiyan strode up the steps after Dakesh, and tried rather unsuccessfully to hide her grin. Deekin trotted along beside her, and quickly sang open the door at the top. Dakesh led them through, and into a large guard-room, mercifully free of company. The mercenary shoved two heavy chests against the door while Imloth checked the stairs and archway on the other side of the chamber.

Jaiyan sank down against the wall, leaned her chin on her hands. Her mouth still tasted of smoke, and the loose handfuls of hair around her shoulders were thick with grime and dirt and gods knew what else.

Deekin sat beside her, leaned the side of his head against her arm. "Boss?"

"Yes, Deeks?"

"We be finding Goat-man soon. Boss knows this, yes?"

"Yes." She let her gaze wander across the room, to where the Seer had cornered Imloth and was scrutinizing his shoulder. Finally satisfied, the Seer let him go, then laughed when he clasped her face in his hands and kissed her thoroughly.

Something prickled in her stomach, not quite guilt, not quite resentment. "Envy," she said aloud.

"Boss?"

She dragged her eyes away from the drow, tried not to notice how they were looking at each other, as if nothing else mattered, as if they were not both filthy, and tired, and bleeding. "Nothing, Deeks. Sorry."

"We find him soon, Boss."

She patted the top of Deekin's head, but she could not quite dislodge the worried knot of tension that had settled in her belly.

Dakesh crouched down on her other side, linked his hands over his knees. She studied him sidelong, saw that his ears were pointed and slender, that his eyes still held that challenging, half-amused glint. "Now that's just sickening."

Jaiyan looked back at the drow, saw that they were whispering to each other, probably in their own language, while Imloth nuzzled the side of the Seer's head, and she played with his hair. "Sickeningly sweet, yes."

"Just wait til we find Goat-man," Deekin said. "Won't be able to pry him off Boss with a spear."

Dakesh shuddered. "I guess that leaves me as the only sane one here."

"Deekin be sane."

"Barely." Dakesh brushed loose hair away from his eyes. "So. Jaiyan. How _did_ you manage to earn the attention of a cambion slaver?"

She sighed, tipped her head back against the wall. "It's a long story."


	23. Chapter 23

_This chapter is a little longer than most...I blame the characters whole-heartedly. Anyway, Bioware owns the background, and most of the locations, though I can lay claim to some of the supporting characters and Jaiyan. Reviews are always welcome. _

_**Chapter Twenty-Three – Revenge**_

Deekin shifted the weight of his pack between his wings. He was sore all over, and the inside of his mouth was dry. He plucked at the leather strap that was digging into his shoulder, then murmured brief thanks when Dakesh leaned down and tugged it back into place for him. Boss walked on his other side, and Deekin took the chance to have another good look at her.

She reeked of blood and sweat, and all the colour seemed to have gone from her face. Deekin could not quite shove the image away, of how her back had looked, all striped red and bruised purple. She was thin, too, and while he knew she had always been wiry – Durnan had once called her close to scrawny – this was different. The edge of her collarbone that he seen through the neck of her shirt had been too sharp, too defined. There were lines carving inwards under both her cheekbones now. He supposed the damage was nothing a few good solid meals would not fix up, but that meant getting her out of here. He risked another look at her face, saw again the dark heavy shadows around her eyes, and the stubborn, familiar set to her mouth. She had had almost the same expression that night in the woods near Hilltop. By now, Deekin understood it to mean she was going to do whatever she needed to do, and the hells take whoever dared to suggest otherwise. _But before, she had not looked so tired, so wrung out, except perhaps in Cania._

"Boss..." He reached up, slipped his hand through hers, smiled when she squeezed back.

Up ahead, Imloth paused at another door. He listened for a long moment before beckoning Deekin close. He hopped up to the door, swiftly sang the locks apart. Needling tension was jabbing all along his spine again; it had been too long since they had seen any guards. Not that he had _liked_ being trapped behind a burning barricade and hoping that the Seer could protect him, and not seeing where Boss was, and hearing Dakesh cry out. But it was still true, what Boss had once said to him, that if you _are_ being attacked, then at least you are not _about to be _attacked.

The door swung open, and Imloth ventured inside first, Dakesh at his shoulder. Deekin smelled clean metal, and the tang of weapon oil, and beneath that, the cold, battlefield scent of the stone. _How many people had died down here? How much did the stones remember? _

"Armoury," Dakesh reported. He glanced across at the Seer, asked, "Are we close?"

Her eyes were huge and pale and seemed distant. "Yes," she answered strangely. "It will not be easy."

Dakesh barked out a laugh. "Never would have guessed."

Watching, Deekin noticed Imloth grin crookedly, but he said nothing. Boss was pacing near the second door, the fingers of one hand tapping out an impatient tempo on her sword hilt. Imloth joined her, offered her a waterflask. She shook her head, and he ignored her, and pressed it into her hand anyway. Deekin saw her roll her eyes, but by the time she handed it back, she was smiling. She clipped the drow lightly on the shoulder, and Deekin noticed again that Imloth was almost exactly her height. _Maybe even a bit taller,_ Deekin conceded to himself. "Imloth?"

"Yes, Deekin?"

"Is you tall for a drow?"

Imloth laughed. "I…suppose. A little. For a male. Why do you ask?"

"Deekin just interested." Deekin shrugged. "Deekin not really have time to notice things like that in Lith My'athar…Deekin be more worried about what he going to find in the Underdark. And what might eat him in the Underdark."

Boss grinned and returned to pacing. Her head kept turning, her blue gaze sweeping the chests lined up against the walls, the weapon racks, the shelves above. Deekin had never seen her quite so obviously agitated. Before the siege of Lith My'athar, she had bottled it all up, had been pale and terse and rather quiet. Then again, he remembered her practically wearing a ditch in the floor in Undrentide, so perhaps he did not have to worry about her so much.

"Dakesh?" Boss's voice held a strained, expectant note. "Dakesh, can you reach up there?"

She was looking up at one of the shelves. Deekin jumped up onto a barrel and followed her gaze. "What Boss sees?"

"Devil's Bane," she answered in the same, odd tone. "Dakesh, please?"

The mercenary leaned up, was about to wrap his hand around the haft Deekin could see half-hidden behind wrapped crossbow bolts and cleaning rags, when Boss told him to be careful. Dakesh grunted, tugged the flail off the shelf. He stumbled a little under the weight, and Boss shrugged apologetically.

"Sorry," she said. "It's heavy."

Dakesh cautiously turned the flail around. He slid it out of its leather harness, saw how the spiked heads clanked together. Watching him, Deekin decidedly it was very strange to see someone other than Goat-man hefting that flail. It looked out of place, and given how Dakesh was grimacing at it, he obviously felt the same. "You want to bring it with us?"

"Yes. I mean, if you can carry it."

"What, you don't want to?" Dakesh smirked. He swung the harness across his shoulders, his eyes widening as it dropped into place. He pulled the straps tight and winced again. "If I fall over and die from carrying this, I'm going to haunt the whole damn lot of you."

"Really that bad?" Deekin asked archly.

"No." Dakesh sighed. "I'm just trying to imagine _using_ it, and that thought alone is making me ache."

Boss was prowling the length of the shelves, stopped at the end to check the weapon racks. "Deeks, have a look and see if you can find his armour."

"His _armour?_" Dakesh shook his head. "I'm not carrying anything else."

"You're the only one of us big enough," Boss told him sharply.

"That's your fault for spending so much time with drow," Dakesh muttered sourly.

Near the far wall, behind two hanging chain shirts, Deekin saw the familiar glint of green. Before his hands touched the cool metal, he could smell Goat-man on the armour, and on the underpadding left in a heap in front of it. "Got it, Boss!"

"Thanks, Deeks." Boss turned from her own exploration of the other shelves, hurried over to him. "Alright. Dakesh, your choice. You can carry it, or you can wear it."

The mercenary drew in a long, steadying breath, and Deekin saw his whole frame go taut. "_Look_, girl, if you _think_…"

"I know," she said, cutting across him. "But you're here. You're in this just as much as we are." She stared up at him, and something imploringly and fragile broke into her voice. "Please. I need you to do this for me." When he said nothing, she managed a grin, and added, "Besides, did Deekin show you those rubies he's been carting around?"

"Rubies?" Dakesh scowled. "Am I _that_ transparent?"

Boss laughed, sounded less forced. "You're a mercenary. Mercenaries like shiny things, don't we? Like magpies?"

Dakesh blinked slowly. "What's a magpie?"

Imloth shrugged. "Don't look at me. I don't know."

"Alright," Dakesh said slowly. "But he'd better be damn grateful, and I want those rubies the _instant_ we get out of here."

"You've got a deal. Now come here so I can truss you up. Imloth, I'll need you as well."

Deekin leaped back up onto the barrel to watch. The mercenary unslung Devil's Bane, then grudgingly turned around and dumped his own pack on the floor. He muttered something about being treated worse than a mule, but Boss ignored him, and threw his pack across to Imloth. "Can you carry this?"

The drow nodded. "If you take my quiver."

"No," the Seer interrupted, softly. "I'll take the pack. You keep the quiver."

"I haven't needed it."

"No. But that doesn't mean you _won't_, foolish male." When Imloth did not move, the Seer simply took the pack from him, and arranged it over her own shoulders. "Do not even _think_ to complain," she said mildly. "I am not made of glass, however much you sometimes think so."

Imloth closed his mouth quickly, raked both hands through his hair, and folded his arms. Though Deekin could not really tell, given his colouring, the drow had an expression that was very close to Boss's whenever she went red.

Boss strapped Goat-man's armour across Dakesh's back, then rolled up the underpadding and tied it to the top of Imloth's pack. The flail followed, hanging down Dakesh's left side. She yanked the harness tight enough to make him gasp, fumbled for a moment with the buckles. "Is that alright?"

"Fine, unless I sit down. If that happens, I don't think I'm getting up again."

Smiling to himself, Deekin rummaged around behind the last of the weapon racks. His gaze fell on a slim-bladed sword, and he recognized the whorled patterns that crept up to the hilt. "Boss? This be your sword?"

She was beside him in a heartbeat, reaching past him and grasping the sword. Sudden relief broke across her face, and Deekin nudged her arm with his nose. The sword was beautiful, Deekin knew, a drow sword that was light and deadly and not quite as ridiculously elaborate as some drow weapons tended to be. Boss stared down at the blade in her hand. "Why'd he keep them?"

"Sell them," Dakesh said. "Or keep them. Never seen a hunter keep a trophy?"

Boss nodded slowly, blue eyes still on the sword. She buckled it properly around her waist, swapped the short blade Imloth had given her to her other hip. "Are we ready?"

"Yes. But if I can't keep up, please feel free to leave me to die," Dakesh muttered.

Boss laughed. "It'll be for a good cause."

"I'm not convinced."

The door opened out onto another corridor, revealing sputtering torches and two lines of guards. Deekin squeaked and flung himself to one side while crossbow bolts slammed through the door. They nicked against barrels, bounced off the floor, or else embedded in the shelves. He gritted his teeth and held on, pressed between the doorframe and Boss's right leg.

He looked past her, saw the Seer, her face stilled in concentration. Her eyes were oddly glassy, and he noticed that Imloth was propping her up, one arm around her slender waist. The air around her hands was whining and buckling, and looked _stretched_. With Imloth still holding her, the Seer pushed up and away from the wall. She spun, and pale flame cracked out, roaring through the door and down into the corridor.

Deekin knew how tenuous it sometimes felt, balancing a ready-to-go fireball in his hands. He wondered how _that_ would have felt, that huge, sparking coil of energy. He imagined that accidentally dropping it would be much worse than that time he had once dropped a small flame spell. And even then, he had been shouted at, and had been quite surprised he had not set the whole cave on fire.

Imloth craned his neck around the doorframe, raised an eyebrow. "Let's go. Quietly."

With the drow leading, Deekin trooped out and into a haze of spent magic and drifting smoke. The arcane energy had ripped through the guards, dropped them where they stood. The corridor smelled like a forge. Running footsteps clattered against the stone, and Deekin unslung his crossbow. The Seer invoked another spell before he had time to aim, though, so he watched while another six guards toppled, wreathed in flame.

"There." The Seer's eyes fluttered closed. "That one. Jaiyan…that one!"

She was pointing at a door halfway up the corridor. Boss bolted past Imloth, calling Deekin's name over her shoulder. He hurtled after her, and winced when he heard boots against the stone again. "Boss! Company!"

She skidded up against the door, motioned him closer. "Just get us inside!"

"Jaiyan!" Imloth's voice, hoarse and somewhere behind them. "Both of you! Get _down, now!_"

Boss fell prone on top of him. Deekin yelped, and tried to pry his nose away from the floor. She was not heavy, but her elbow was in his ribs, and her weapon belt was digging against him. He heard the sizzling sound of some unleashed spell, and then the clanking of mail and metal hitting the floor. The snapping, rhythmic noise of a bowstring releasing followed, and he figured that Imloth must have unslung his bow. An arrow rattled past, and through Boss's crossed arms, he saw another guard collapse.

"The door, now," Dakesh called. "And quickly!"

Boss rolled off him, still shielded him even as he stood and touched the door. The air around them was crackling with magic. More arrows sliced past, fired viper-quick and sinking into the advancing guards. _Who were too close for the Seer to risk another big spell_, Deekin knew. He flattened his hands against the door and tried to concentrate. _Just a simple spell. Really easy. Two sung lines. Do it. Now. _

Boss spun away from him, cannoned into one of the guards. He heard the man cry out, swiftly cut off. An arrow buzzed past his head, and another guard fell. Metal chimed somewhere close, and he heard Boss gasp. With his voice shaking and his heart threatening to beat right out of his chest, Deekin sang the spell. The lock snapped up.

"Get inside, now!" Dakesh again, his voice thick with something very like fear.

A bolt bit against the wall, just beside Deekin's shoulder. He heaved against the door, threw himself through it when it creaked open. "Boss! Come on!"

The heavy smell of death and exhaustion hit him first. He did not let himself look, did not want to see if they had come for nothing. Instead, he spun, motioned Boss inside. She whirled away from a guard and dived through after him, holding her sword away from her body when she stumbled over the threshold. He leaned around the doorframe, saw more guards approaching down the corridor. Opposite, Imloth was kneeling, and loosing another arrow. He moved enviably quickly, sliding another shaft from his quiver and nocking it without breaking his focus. He lined the fletching up to his cheekbone and snapped, "Dakesh! Get her in that room!"

He meant the Seer, and when Deekin turned to look, he saw that she was across the corridor, flame crackling around both fists. Deekin braced his crossbow, fired, and one of the guards nearest went down. Dakesh cut the ankles out from another, pushed up to his feet, and reached the Seer. "What about you?"

"Get her in that room, tiefling!"

Deekin aimed and fired again, giving Dakesh a little more room to move. He followed that up with a lightning spell, and two more guards fell, writhing. Dakesh took his chance, hurtled across the corridor, towing the Seer after him.

"Imloth!" Twisting away from Dakesh, the Seer paused at the door.

"Get _in_ here," Dakesh snapped. He ignored her sudden look of surprise, grabbed her by the shoulders, and forcibly swung her through the door. "He's fine. Now _stay_ there."

But to Deekin, watching, Imloth was not fine. He was trapped further down, and whenever he had to duck a crossbow bolt, he lost time that he should have used to aim and fire. _And there's too many of them even for him_, Deekin though. Yes, Imloth was a drow, and Deekin knew all about how drow fought. But even from here, he could count nine guards. Deekin called up a hasty, sputtering fireball, shouted to Imloth to drop flat, and launched it. The spell smacked full-bore into the guards, and he heard them shriek. One hand held up against the brightness, Imloth dashed across the corridor. A crossbow bolt winged out, slashed past his arm. Deekin saw his face tighten, and another look showed him blood, patching through torn leather.

"Come on," Dakesh snarled. "You're wasting time, drow!"

Deekin flung another fire spell at the guards, winced as smoke boiled up. Somewhere further down, a guard screamed for help, for reinforcements, for a wizard. Another horrible, waiting moment, and Imloth was through the door, crashing into Dakesh. The mercenary snapped something about useless drow, then caught him as he staggered. Boss leaned up, shoved the door closed, and silence followed.

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Jaiyan gulped down another breath that tasted of old blood and rust. Her heartbeat was racing, and when she sheathed her sword, her hands shook. She was vaguely aware of the Seer asking Imloth if he was alright, of Dakesh asking if could shed all the damn weight he was carrying yet. Deekin was touching the door, softly singing the lock shut again. Amid the strange, terse quiet, she turned, and saw Valen.

He was hanging against the wall, very much as he had been when the cambion had dragged her out. Blood crusted the shackles at his wrists. His chest rose and fell slowly. Red hair had tumbled down over most of his face. She could see that his eyes were closed, that his skin looked drained and too white.

"Valen?" Very carefully, she approached him. He did not stir, did not even raise his head. This close, she could see that he held something crushed one hand, something tangled and blood-soaked. "Valen? Valen, it's me…it's Jaiyan."

She reached out, and hated that she wondered if he was truly _him_. Yes, the Reaper had told them how she had removed his infernal taint, how he was no longer entirely controlled by his blood. But this was Sigil, and he had been tortured, and the ashen cast to his face made her stomach flip over. "Valen?" _He's manacled, _she thought desperately. _Even if he's not him, he can't do anything. _She touched his chin first, and then his cheek, before winding a thick lock of red hair around her fingers. "Valen, please wake up. It's me. It's Jaiyan. I've come for you."

His head moved, and a shudder unraveled through him. His eyelids flickered, and lifted, and he was looking at her. "Jaiyan..?"

"Yes." Her throat closed up. "Valen…I missed you."

His mouth trembled. "Jaiyan…I…you're here?"

"I'm here. It's real. I'm here." She leaned in, pressed her lips against his until he shivered. His shackles clanked when he tried to move, tried to touch her. "Don't," she said, softly. "Let's get those off you. Deeks?"

"Deekin's here," Valen said. "How?"

"Long story." She waited while Deekin sang quickly. The shackles snapped open, and Valen staggered. She caught him, and her knees nearly buckled when his whole weight came down on her shoulder. "Valen, love, you're heavy. You need to help me."

The chains fell, Deekin pushing them away. Valen braced a hand against the wall, looked at her through those ice-blue eyes. "This is…not a dream?"

"No." She clasped his face in her hands and kissed him again. "I'm here, and you're stuck with me, tiefling."

The ghost of a smile touched his face. "I missed you," he said, thickly. "So much."

"I know. But we still need to get out of here. Can you stand properly?"

He tried, and she saw pain ripple across his face. She moved to touch him again, but he scowled. "I'm alright."

"You're not alright, but you're closer to normal." She grinned at him. "Stop whining and let the Seer help you."

"The Seer…?"

"She's here too," Jaiyan said gently. "And Imloth, and Deekin's new friend."

The Seer stepped past her, smiling when Valen muttered an apology. "Don't you dare," she said. "Where are you hurt?"

"Everywhere." His frown deepened. "My back."

The drow touched his shoulders, trailed down the solid line of his back. Watching, Jaiyan sucked a quick breath in through her teeth. _The cambion must've really gone to work on him after he took me_. New weals and cuts welled blood through what remained of Valen's shirt. Jaiyan gave him another look, and realised that he lost some weight, mostly around his chest and middle.

"Jaiyan?" Dakesh, calling from where he leaned against the door with Imloth. "Stop being romantic and start thinking. I hear footsteps. Lots of them."

The Seer's hands glowed, and Valen sighed as the spell sank into him.

"Could we hold them?" Reluctantly, Jaiyan pulled away from the tiefling. "Block the door, then cut them down as they come in?"

"Not for long," Dakesh answered.

"I need time enough to call a portal," the Seer said, quietly, and full of resolve. "Hold them until then."

"A portal?" Dakesh shook his head. "I never agreed to any portals."

Beside him, Imloth turned his ear against the door again. "Do you want to stay here instead?"

Some huge spell unleashed in the corridor, rocking the door in its frame. Imloth and Dakesh scrambled away, took up positions on either side instead. Another spell slammed into the door, and tendrils of smoke wove underneath. Jaiyan heard shouting, and running feet, and a deep, urbane voice that sent coldness sliding down her spine.

"That's him," she said. "Azraleth."

"Azraleth?" Valen's eyes fixed on the door.

"The cambion," Jaiyan supplied. "Recognise the name?"

Valen shook his head. "No." His gaze swung away from the door, pinned on Dakesh. "My flail…?"

"Please, take it. Damn thing's already worn a crease in my back." Dakesh straightened up, shed the green armour and Devil's Bane. "Blame your girl. She made me carry it."

Jaiyan shrugged. "I didn't want to leave it behind."

She crouched down behind Imloth, unstrapped the underpadding. She helped Valen shrug it on, then held his armour in place while he snapped the catches closed. He swayed again as he straightened. "When the door goes, stay back here."

He gave her an incredulous look. "I'm tired, not dead."

"Didn't I tell you that once?" She heaved the leather harness up onto his shoulders. Something hard hit the door, and it shook again.

"Yep," Deekin piped up. "And afterwards, Boss got sliced open by drow sword."

Valen smiled, and it softened the angles of his face, lit his eyes. "I'll be careful." He leaned down, kissed her forehead, and said, "I thought…I thought I was never going to see you again."

"No such luck," she whispered. "Valen, I…"

The door thumped inwards, almost tearing the bolt and lock loose. Jaiyan looked desperately at the Seer, saw that she was half-crouching near the corner, her hands tilted palm-up. Her eyes were closed, and the air around her was pulsing, filling with impatient tension.

"Jaiyan." Imloth's hand on her wrist startled her. "If we take the door, can you protect her?"

"Yes." She stared into his face and saw urgency and apprehension. Until she called and controlled the spell, the Seer would be entirely vulnerable. Understanding, she squeezed his hand in response, and said, "I'll stay with her."

"Thank you." The stiff line of his shoulders relaxed slightly. "I'll keep an eye on your kobold."

Deekin sniffed disapprovingly. "Deekin not need watching. Deekin perfectly capable."

"Of course you are." Imloth settled the weight of his bow and quiver along his back, drew his sword.

Three bolts crashed into the door, sinking two inches through the wood. Jaiyan gripped the hilt of her sword, realised her hands were damp with sweat. Imloth and Dakesh were braced on either side of the door, Valen and Deekin behind them. The little kobold already had some buzzing, white spell flaring around his hands. Jaiyan stared at the door as it rattled again and tried to force her thoughts calm and flat. Her gaze kept skipping across to Valen. His hair looked shockingly vivid against his skin, but she wondered if it was the days they had spent apart that made it seem so. _Remember, first time you met him, you thought his hair was ridiculously bright. He's alive_, she thought. _Alive and breathing and mostly alright. He's taken a hell of a beating down here, but he's alive. Now we just have to _stay_ alive long enough to get out of here. _

The door swung inwards, nearly wrenched clear of its hinges. A jet of flame speared through, scorching against the far wall and hazing the air with smoke. A volley of bolts followed, biting against the stone and whipping past Jaiyan, close enough to make her flinch. Deekin twisted, hurled his spell through. Light flared, punishingly bright, as the spell crashed into the guards in the corridor. More crossbow bolts sailed through, and Jaiyan heard the cambion snarling to his men.

The first guard through the door fell when Dakesh swept his feet out from under him. The next three toppled, and the two after that who leaped clear over the carnage marched face-first into Devil's Bane.

Behind Jaiyan, the Seer dropped to her knees. Startled, she whirled round, saw that the drow's eyes were still closed, that some web of magic hung between her hands. She was breathing rapidly, her pulse fluttering at her throat and temple. She was tempted to snarl at her to hurry up and get the damned portal open. _Not helpful. Watch the door instead. _

More guards poured in through the doorframe. Dakesh spun and took on the first two, sweeping his sword at one of them and driving his elbow into the second's throat. With a flowing kind of grace, he whirled again, plunged his sword to the hilt in the second as he crumpled. Another guard fell, skewered through the neck by a quick shot from Deekin. Four more shoved and kicked their way through, only to be met by Imloth and Valen. Heart-in-mouth, Jaiyan watched as Valen sent Devil's Bane smacking hard into a guard's head. He yanked back, caught the blood spray across his face, and kept going. He was moving slower than usual, she noted, and his footwork was clumsy, too close together. The flat of a sword rang against his lower back, and she saw him wince and almost stumble.

Every instinct, every raw nerve screamed her to help him. To run over there and carve through the guards until she could give him enough space to right himself. _No, _she should. _Stay here. Protect the Seer. She's getting you a way out. _

Valen turned, slammed shoulder-first into a guard, knocked him sprawling. Imloth darted in from his left, opened the man's throat. Valen grunted his thanks and spun again, Devil's Bane swinging out and crashing against another guard's mailed chest. The man staggered back, and collapsed when the flail flipped round and carved his head in.

_He's fine_. Jaiyan bit her lip and watched Deekin instead. Kneeling back from the door, the little kobold cranked his crossbow tight again and fired. The bolt arced past Dakesh's shoulder and sank into a guard's stomach. The mercenary followed up, running the guard through when he swayed. He pirouetted sharply, pushed aside a guard who was too close to Deekin. One foot lashed out, sending the guard staggering.

Through the door, someone shouted for the guards to fall back. Jaiyan gripped her sword hilt hard enough to hurt her fingers. Part of her wished they _would_ break past, if only to give her something to do, something to take her mind of worrying over Valen.

Smoke seethed through the door, broken by a hail of bolts. Dakesh's eyes went wide, and he shouted, "Magic! Move, now!"

Something hot and trailing sparks slammed into the wall. Another spell careened after, exploding against the remains of the door. Imloth ducked and rolled away. His impetus carried him a few inches across the doorway. Two more bolts whipped out through the smoke, sailed over his head. He flinched back, and cried out as a third slammed into his thigh. Dakesh growled out an obscenity, grabbed him under the shoulders, and hauled him back.

"Imloth..?" The Seer half-turned, eyes flickering. The spell between her hands sputtered. "Is he..?"

"He's fine," Jaiyan shouted over her shoulder. She brushed past Valen, kneeled beside the drow. "Look at me. _Look_ at me. Imloth, look at me!"

His head turned against her knee. His pale eyes were narrow, streaked around with sweat. "I _am_."

"I'm going to move you. It's going to hurt." Before he could speak, she slid her hands under his arms and pulled. He snarled something in drow, and she grinned down at him. "You're not flattering me, are you?" Whatever he said next sounded similar. "Didn't think so."

A fireball slammed into the doorframe, sending Valen and Dakesh reeling back. Another spell followed, some massive coil of energy that whined loud enough to set Jaiyan's teeth on edge. Trying to ignore it, and the sweat that dripped down the back of her neck, she looked down at Imloth again. His face looked drained, almost grayish, and his eyes were half closed. The bolt was sunk almost all the way through his thigh, welling dark blood. _Important arteries in the thigh_, Jaiyan thought, close to panic. _What the hell do I do now? _

White light blazed out from the Seer's stiff fingers. Hanging and febrile, the spell shimmered. The air around her seemed to _give_, to buckle somehow. Jaiyan had seen portals, had stepped through plenty in her time, ill-advised or otherwise. But she had never seen one spun from nothing quite like this; even the Reaper's gateways had been _already there_, already strung between high stone pillars.

_They've stopped firing,_ Jaiyan realised. She looked away from the Seer, and her gut roiled when she saw the cambion, framed in the ruined doorway. Wings spread, tail lashing, Azraleth glared down at the dead guards. His head lifted, and his mouth split into a disarming smile.

_Shoot him_, she thought. _Shoot him, attack him, _do_ something!_

The cambion's red eyes swiveled, fixed on Valen. "Valen Shadowbreath."

Valen growled low in his throat. His knuckles were bleached white around the haft of his flail. "What do you want?"

"You," Azraleth said. "A great deal of trouble your friends went to, yes? Finding you and your woman…shame you're all going to die." His gaze swept across to Dakesh. "And you…tiefling, do I know you?"

"Yes," Dakesh answered softly. "You do."

"You're a slave?"

"Something like that."

Azraleth snorted, turned his attention on Jaiyan. Grinned when he saw her sitting with Imloth's head pillowed on her knees. The drow's breathing was coming in quick, ragged gasps. "Drow…my wizards said you had drow helping you. Dying for you now, it seems." He looked across to the Seer, to the flickering curtain that hung between her hands. "Spellcaster. Should I thank her for burning my gates?"

Deekin coughed. "Umm…actually…that was Deekin. Sorry about that."

The cambion glared down at him. "A kobold. Here. Why?"

"Umm…Deekin come to rescue Boss. Deekin find Dakesh, and Deekin get inside."

"_You_ started this?"

Deekin blinked thoughtfully. "Yes?"

Azraleth roared, and his wings flared. He whirled, unexpectedly fast, and blocked Dakesh's springing attack with one huge muscled forearm. He shoved the mercenary back, turned and met Valen. Devil's Bane scored along his arm, the spiked heads of the flail digging in and drawing blood. Dakesh found his footing again, darted forward. His next attempt clanged off the cambion's wings, and a sweep of the thick tail knocked him over.

"Stay away from the tail," Jaiyan called across to him. "Get round the front. Keep hitting him."

An acid spell splashed against the cambion's side. He barely seemed to notice, simply bulled forward and crashed full-force into Valen. Carried the tiefling off his feet and slammed him against the wall. "You will _regret_ coming here," Azraleth snarled. "You will regret your friends coming, and you will regret ever telling that girl that you love her."

Dakesh charged in from the left, but the cambion swept his wing out, and the mercenary staggered back, swearing.

Jaiyan unlatched her fingers from their painful grip on Imloth's shoulder. "I'm sorry, I…"

"Go," he said. He swallowed, awkwardly, and his hand juddered against her elbow. "Just be careful."

She clasped his shoulder, and then she was up and running, her own sword back in her hand. She hurtled past Deekin first, grinned when she saw him lift his crossbow. His first shot sent a bolt slamming against the arch of the cambion's wings. Azraleth howled, let go of Valen and swung around. Jaiyan stopped beside Dakesh. She had no time to say anything as the cambion loomed over them. Cold sweat clung to the back of her neck, and she hated the feral, angry light in his eyes.

"You know," she said. "You're nearly as big or as nasty as Mephistopheles was."

Azraleth growled. Another bolt slammed into the top of wings, tearing through leathery skin. He stumbled, stepped sideways, and cried out when Devil's Bane connected with the side of his head. Valen followed up, bringing the flail up again, slamming it against the cambion's chest. But sweat was pouring in thick runnels down his face and throat, and Jaiyan could see how exhausted he was. His next lunge was half cut off when he tripped over nothing. Azraleth's fist dropped and swung, ploughed hard against Valen's shoulder. The tiefling staggered, and hit the ground when the cambion's wing buffeted against him. Devil's Bane flung up, the haft trembling in Valen's hands. Azraleth grabbed the flail, wrenched it away. Levered a foot against Valen's breastplate, kept him pinned.

_My tiefling_, Jaiyan thought furiously. She dodged a lash of the cambion's tail. Lined herself up on his right side, waited until his wing swept up again, and drove her sword into his flank.

Azraleth screamed and wrenched himself free. Dark blood spilled. Something very close to satisfaction washed through Jaiyan as she circled away from him. His hand slipped down his side, touched torn flesh. _Not so tough, are we? Bleed like everyone else, don't we?_

She looked past him, exchanged a hurried look with Dakesh. The mercenary dived around his other side. She kept moving backwards, locking her gaze with the cambion's. When he launched at her, she dived away. She hit the floor roughly, jarring herself. Pushed herself up in time to hear Azraleth's choked-off cry. Dakesh's sword was hilt-deep in his abdomen, and his eyes were wide and rolling.

_That has to be it._ Warily, Jaiyan lowered her sword a fraction. The mercenary went to grasp his sword again, but the cambion spun away. The fierce, livid red eyes settled on Jaiyan. He leaped at her, and she scrambled back madly. _How is he still moving?_ One elbow snapped out, slammed against Dakesh's head and left him swaying. His other hand caught and stopped Deekin's panicked attack, twisted until the kobold kicked and shrieked.

_My kobold,_ she thought. _I don't think so._ She sliced out at him, bringing her sword in low. The point dug into his arm and raked upward. He jerked aside, dropped Deekin, and charged, all teeth and claws and snapping tail. She backed away from him, aware that the wall was too close behind her, that all he had to do was rush her and she would be out of easy options.

Dakesh leaped past the fluttering wings, reached out, grabbed his sword hilt and pulled. The blade sheared through flesh and Azraleth screamed again. Jaiyan darted past his flailing claws, raked her sword across his chest. He reeled away. His huge hands came up again, crashed against Jaiyan's stomach. Her knees crumpled first, and she cried out when she hit the floor. Dakesh swooped in front of her, and she heard other footsteps behind her.

"Stay down," Valen said tersely.

Devil's Bane whined over her head, lodged against Azraleth's throat. Dakesh ducked another swipe of the beating wings and drove his sword into the cambion's chest again. Jaiyan rolled away, only heard it when the flail ripped clear and the cambion tried to speak. Valen reached down, pulled her up to her feet. She clung to him, her arms around his waist, only half watching as Azraleth sank down onto his knees. For a long, wavering moment, the cambion stared at Valen. Those ferocious, crimson eyes looked confused, blank with uncertainty. His chest was heaving, and above, his throat was ruined.

Dakesh closed a hand on his sword hilt, wrenched it clear, and stepped back as Azraleth fell forward. He flicked blood off the blade, and his eyes were narrow and dark. He prodded the cambion with one foot. "He's gone."

"Good." Jaiyan stirred, pried herself away from Valen. She checked Deekin first, found that he was bruised but not bleeding. A glance across the room showed her Imloth, braced up on his elbows. The floor beneath him was dark with blood, and sweat had pooled in the hollow of his throat. "Oh, gods. Imloth?"

"Still here." He tried to sit up properly, winced. "Oh. That's not very good."

She crossed the floor, crouched beside him. "We have to move you."

"I know." His eyes rolled, looked past her to where the Seer stood. "Is it ready?"

She gave a slight nod, but her eyelids did not flicker. Her back was curved, and fine tremors ran the length of her arms. Between her spread fingers, the gateway hung, black and rippling. Jaiyan wondered how long she had held it, how long she had stood, listening to the sounds of carnage, waiting for them.

"Come on." Jaiyan slipped an arm under Imloth's shoulder, tried to lever him off the floor. She braced his weight against her shoulder, winced when the edges of his armour bit into her. His leg was dragging, and she tried not to look at the bolt, or the thick patch of blood around it.

"Quickly," the Seer said, unease creeping into her voice. "Go through it. Please. I can't hold it much longer."

Valen touched Jaiyan's shoulder. "Let me take him."

"No, you're exhausted, I can…"

"He's a lot smaller than me." Valen looked at her, level and serious. "You'd better be through there after me."

She laughed, gulping and uneven. "I promise." Very carefully, she maneuvered Imloth into Valen's arms. His head lolled back against the tiefling's breastplate, and he murmured something in his own language. "Go on, get him out of here."

She watched as Valen stepped into the whirling portal, and was suddenly not sure if she was elated or terrified. To distract herself, she grabbed Deekin's wrist next, and walked him through the gateway, telling him she would be there soon enough.

"Quickly," the Seer said, imploringly. "Please."

Jaiyan looked up at Dakesh, into those brown, narrowed eyes. "You coming?"

"Why would I?" He grinned and shrugged. "I know my way out."

"You're a lousy liar. They'll have you pinned to the wall before you get six feet, and you know it."

"I did what I needed to." He crooked an eyebrow at her. "Got you and your tiefling, helped your kobold."

She wondered if slapping him would convince him faster. "You won't be able to spend your pay if you die some messy death in that corridor. Besides, thought you wanted those rubies?"

Dakesh scowled. "I am _not_ jumping through some portal that goes gods know where."

"Waterdeep," the Seer said. "It goes to Waterdeep."

"And why do I want to go there?"

Jaiyan smiled. "Because you don't want to die." She grabbed him by the wrist and hauled him across the blood-slick stone. Already, she could hear running feet in the corridor, and the ratcheting sound of crossbows being primed.

The Seer stepped away from the flickering gateway. "Are you ready?"

"Yes." Jaiyan gripped the mercenary's wrist harder. "Let's go home."

A hail of bolts flew through the doorway. One snicked off the stone above Dakesh's head. Another volley followed, slamming against the floor and striking against the wall. In the corridor, someone shouted for healers and another wizard. The Seer clasped Jaiyan's other hand, and guided them both through.

The cold touched Jaiyan's skin first, along with the prickling, invasive feel of the spell. She opened her mouth to complain, but the portal twisted her mind upside down and she lost track of her thoughts. There was a dizzying, blurred moment where all she could see was white light. She closed her eyes, but it did not seem to help. Something solid met her shoulders and her hips, and she winced. _You're lying down_, her mind informed her. Nausea knifed through her when she tried to move. Her knees and elbows throbbed, and she supposed she had been foolish enough to fall out of the portal. She heard voices, then footsteps bursting hard and harsh against the floor. Questions were asked, and she did not quite follow them. Something about Imloth's leg wound, and who the hell was the tall man with dark hair?

"Is she alright?"

This voice was gruff and worried and she knew him. Rough hands lifted her, balanced her against something warm. She reached out, flailed, and her fingers brushed cold metal.

"It's alright," Valen said, sounding very far away. "We're here. We're safe. I'm with you."

"Jaiyan, missy?"

The same voice, closer this time. She looked up, tried to squint through the pounding in her head. She made out a white shirt, and above that, stubble and narrowed eyes and a deep-set scowl. The tiredness was washing through her again, but she grinned up at him. "Hello, Durnan."


	24. Chapter 24

_**Chapter Twenty-Four – Home**_

The white light from the spell winked out, leaving gloom broken by candles and the scent of charcoal. Jaiyan tried to lift herself up on her elbows, gritted her teeth when her head swam.

"Don't move." Durnan stepped around to her other side, glared down at her. "Gods above, girl, what were you _thinking?_" He shook his head disbelievingly. "And you, you damn stupid darkling, why'd you have to go and get yourself shot? You're bleeding all over my cellar."

Jaiyan turned her head, but could see nothing past Durnan's ankles and the stone floor beneath. She heard Imloth murmur something, and then the Seer said, "Durnan, can you help me with him?"

"Course I will." The innkeeper's voice softened. "Come on, lad. No, don't sit up. I've got you."

She had another go at sitting straight, and succeeded. Her head whirled, and someone's arm braced her shoulders. Valen's, she guessed, from the way he cupped her hip and pressed a quick kiss against the side of her head. _You got him,_ she thought. _You found him. He's with you. _"Valen…"

"Sshh. It's alright." He was half kneeling behind her, she realised. His tail slipped up, wound around her arm. "Can you stand?"

It took two tries, and he had to hold her around the waist, but she managed it. She stared up at him, saw that he looked as drained and worn through as she must. Small beads of sweat rolled down his temples, and his hair was matted and damp. The arms circling her waist trembled.

Across the room, the Seer opened the door, held it wide to let Durnan carry Imloth through. "Hey, missy," the innkeeper called over the drow's head. "Get yourselves upstairs. Any of you still up and moving, there's hot food in the kitchen. Now get out of my cellar."

Jaiyan nodded numbly. She made herself turn around, smiled down at Deekin. "You alright?"

"Yes, Boss." Deekin looked first at her, then at Dakesh, who sat cross-legged beside him, a disgruntled expression on his face. "Deekin going to look after Dakesh."

Jaiyan laughed, a little raggedly. "Lucky him. Get him something to eat."

Very carefully, leaning on Valen, she made her way across to the door. There, the dizziness swept up and through her again, and she leaned against the frame. Propping himself up opposite her, Valen looked little better; the skin around his eyes was heavy with shadows, and he was moving uncomfortably under the weight of Devil's Bane and his armour. Arms around each other, they made it up the slanting passageway and finally out into the kitchen. Steam and raised voices met them, along with the warm, welcome smell of roasting meat and bubbling stew. Jaiyan called out a quick greeting to Mhaere. They bypassed the corridor that led to the taproom, but Jaiyan could hear the raucous sound of patrons drinking and slamming tankards against trestles, or else stamping across to the bar. The doors crashed open, letting in howling wind and a chorus of yells to close the door again, to keep the evening chill out.

They made it up the stairs, and in through to the small room Durnan had given them last time. The last of the day's sunlight streamed in through the curtains, dappled the floor. Part of her wanted to run to the casement, to see that Waterdeep was still there, still real. _There'll be time for that later_, she thought. _Right now you need time for Valen. _

She closed the door. Left the curtains slightly parted, led Valen to the bed. There, she unstrapped Devil's Bane, struggled with the catches on his armour. She tugged his boots off, pulled his breeches down next. His shirt and tunic followed, and she tried not to gasp when she saw the purple fist-sized bruises on his chest, the half-healed lacerations on his back and shoulders. He helped her out of her clothes, and she noticed that they were both shaking. Without speaking, she drew him down onto the bed beside her, and they simply lay there, looking at each other.

"Valen, I…" The breath caught in her throat. "Valen…"

He murmured her name, and then he moved, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her tight against his chest. She could feel his heartbeat, fluttering fast and wild beneath her cheek. His tail slipped up, wound around her thigh. He whispered her name again, and pressed his mouth against her hair.

They lay like that as the night passed, clinging to each other, sometimes drifting in sleep. Twice Jaiyan woke suddenly, and buried her head against his shoulder again. Another time, his sharp, shuddering cry startled her awake. A pale line of moonlight slanted in through the curtains. She could hear his breathing, uneven and rough. He said her name again, and that he loved her. His arms tightened around her, and when she kissed his face and his eyelids, she tasted salt and wetness.

Dawn brought a flurry of rain against the casement. In the grey light, Jaiyan lifted her head and looked at him. He was asleep – properly, deeply – his head pillowed on one crooked arm, the other one flung around her waist. That red hair she loved to run her hands through was a splash of startling colour behind him. His skin was still deathly pale, but warm when she traced the shape of his cheekbone, and down along the line of his jaw to the hollow of his throat.

_You almost lost him_. The thought was raw still, and painful. Trying to distract herself, she touched loose scarlet strands where they spilled around his neck. Under her fingers, his pulse was slow and steady. She trailed her hand down to his collarbone, and then across the broad planes of his chest.

Valen stirred, shifted slightly. His eyes opened, and for a long moment he simply looked at her. Then he smiled, and said, "My love, I could stay here forever with you, I think, but…would you like a bath?"

She laughed, and with the sudden laughter came tears. She nestled against the side of his neck, and muttered, "Don't you dare laugh at me. And yes, I would love a bath."

"Laugh at you? Whyever would I do that?" He tilted her face up, brushed away her tears. "Jaiyan, you came for me. You found me."

"I nearly lost you," she said. "Valen, I nearly lost you."

"You found me," he told her again. He kissed her forehead, her cheeks. "What you did…"

"I had help. Besides, if Deekin hadn't got there…" The tears were threatening again, and she blinked them back furiously. "Alright. Bath, now, before I embarrass myself completely."

He laughed softly. "Put some clothes on and we'll find the maid."

But it took them a long time to get dressed again, because she kept pulling him back down beside her, and running her hands across his shoulders, down his sides, toying with his tail. He responded, threading his fingers through her hair, cupping her face, gently stroking the new scars on her back. When she finally pulled her leggings and shirt back on, she wrinkled her nose at the smell of blood and soot and sweat and metal. The rest of her must smell worse, she decided, so she shepherded Valen out into the corridor. They ran into Durnan not far from the stairs, and he promised hot water and newly-made bread for breakfast. After a brief interrogation, he told them that Imloth was sleeping, that the bolt had slid out without much too trauma, and that the Seer was watching him like a cat that had been caught in the rain.

Not much later, feeling happily full, and tempted to start in on her third cinnamon roll, Jaiyan smiled as Valen locked the door. Steam rose from the tub in front of the fireplace, and she had to concede that watching the maid fill it had been close to tortuous. The girl had refused help, and Jaiyan had wanted to leap in the moment the water hit the bottom. Finally able to shed her clothes again, she groaned and muttered, "I'm burning them. Tonight. With some kind of ceremony."

Valen chuckled. "I might join you."

She smiled, and accepted the hand he held out to her. She let him guide her across the floorboards, and steady her when she wavered, the tired muscles in her legs almost buckling when she tried to hop over the side of the tub.

He sat down behind her, gathered her against him. "Could we…sit like this? For a while?"

"Mmm. For as long as you want." Sunk almost shoulder deep in the water, Jaiyan curled against his chest. She traced one hand across him, following the hard lines of his muscles. His skin was warm and welcome and it seemed an age since had done this, taken the time to explore him, properly and slowly. She dipped her fingers into the wet trail of red hair that descended from his navel. "Valen?"

"Yes, my love?"

"I…missed you. When we were…there."

"I know." He shifted, moving her gently so that she sat half upright.

She felt his hands ghosting across her shoulders. "Are they ugly?"

His hands stilled, and he leaned in to kiss the nape of her neck. "No."

"Flatterer." She felt him gather her hair, sweep it back across one shoulder. Then the lavender smell of the soap, as he rubbed it into her wet tresses. "Mmm. You're very good at that."

His fingers pushed a little harder against her scalp. "You're just easy to please."

"Hah. Only concerning some things, tiefling." A handful of water cascaded down over her head, and she spluttered. Rather gracelessly, she twisted and glared at him through dripping suds. "You'd better make up for that later."

Valen smiled. "I'm sure I'll think of something." He pressed the soap into her hands. "Return the favour?"

She did not let him turn around, instead just reached up past his shoulders to lather his hair. The thick scarlet stands slipped through her fingers, and she smiled when she saw his eyes close. This near, she could see the blue veins tracing his eyelids, and she enjoyed the way water droplets tracked past his nose, dripped off the sharp line of his chin. Two scoops of water left his hair gleaming, and another sluiced the rest of the soap off his shoulder. Satisfied, she settled herself against his chest again. She could have sat like this for the rest of the morning, his skin slick beneath hers, listening to the rhythm of him breathing.

"Valen?"

"Mmm?"

"Water's getting cold."

He helped her out of the tub, wrapped a towel around her. While he patted down her hair with another one, she found herself staring at his eyes, and then at the lines of his neck when he swallowed. "Valen?"

He paused, hands sunk in the towel, his face inches from hers. "Yes, my love?"

_Why are you so nervous? _But she was, and his sincere, open expression was not helping. _You _know_ him, _she thought. _Every inch of him. _Heat rushed into her face. _Think about something else, not inches of wet tiefling. _"I just…Valen…I missed you."

"I'm here." His fingers touched her chin, tipped her face up. "I'm not going anywhere."

She wanted to tell him how sorry she was, how she should have found him sooner, how she should never have asked him to go back to Sigil. How her heart had twisted when she saw him again, head down and skin like chalk, chained to the wall. She wanted to tell him how it had felt, with the lash coming down again and again while he watched. How it had become impossibly worse, when the cambion had dragged her out of the cell. How she had been half-convinced, and more than once, that she would never see him again.

There was too much they had to say, she knew, too much they would have to talk about. But right now, words were failing her, and her throat was tight. So she leaned up, clasped the back of his head, and kissed him, hard and insistent and pleading.

Valen groaned, his mouth opening onto hers. His arms slipped down and locked around her waist. She wriggled the towel off, and then she was pressed up against him, touching deliciously clean skin. She wondered if she should pull him across to the bed, but his tail lashed up and around her waist, hauling her even tighter against him. She leaned all her weight off her feet and into him, and he toppled.

Jaiyan heard his breathless laugh as she landed on top of him, elbows either side of his head. He was solid and warm beneath her, and simply _there_. "Valen…I need you."

She started to apologise, to say that she knew they were rushing, but he kissed her silent. He fanned his hands on either side of her waist, and she gasped out his name as he filled her. It was almost painful, his fingers digging in and each upward snapping motion of his hips slamming against her. His tail whipped against her thigh. Her head dropped against his shoulder. She tasted sweat, and felt him shudder when his hands slipped down, cupped the backs of her legs.

"Jaiyan, I…" The words turned into a moan. He half sat up, pulling her onto his lap. For a long, desperate moment, she stared into his face, into his blue eyes. Her fingers were braced against his chest, and trembling slightly.

Then he was moving again, tipping her backwards onto the rug. Her hands found his horns, held him in place while she kissed him. The inside of his mouth was hot and pliant and frantic. His head wrenched to one side, and he shuddered, half sobbing her name as he spilled himself inside her. Jaiyan pressed her face against his shoulder, holding on as he quivered.

"Oh. Gods." He tried to prop himself up on his elbows over her, gave up, and collapsed next to her. "I'm sorry."

Jaiyan coiled up against his chest, nuzzled the side of his neck. "Don't be sorry." It seemed far too long since she had seen him like this, vulnerable and sweating. She kissed him again, sighed when his arms closed properly around her. "Besides, I'm not letting you out of my sight, so you'll have plenty of time to make it up to me later."

"I love you." He stroked her back, the curve of her hips, the length of her thighs. "When he…when he took you away, I thought he'd…I don't know what I thought. I thought I'd never see you again."

"I know." The tears were welling up again, and she blinked them away furiously. "Oh, hells. Sorry."

"No," he said, softly. He kissed her until she moaned against his lips. "When he flogged you…"

"I know," she repeated. His hands had drifted up to her shoulders again, to the new scars. "Valen…"

She heard him murmur that it was alright, that he was holding her. She let herself go, let every line of tension in her break, until she was sobbing against his chest, crying in huge, heaving gasps. Valen said nothing, just cradled her and ran his fingers through her damp hair. By the time she had wept herself exhausted, her eyes stung and her throat hurt. "Sorry. I didn't mean to be so…"

"Stop that." He rolled onto his side, taking her with him. He kissed her eyelids and her cheeks and her throat, light and teasing. His tail wound around her thigh and slid up. "Now, is my lady content with the floor, or should we move to the bed?"

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Imloth surfaced from strange, disconnected dreams. He had been running through the temple in Lith My'athar, and charged out through the doors only to find himself in Waterdeep. The dull, throbbing ache in his leg was still there, despite another round of healing this morning. The wound had been horribly deep, the bolt lodged through solid muscle and almost touching bone. He had seen scouts felled and screaming from such injuries in the Underdark, and now, ruefully, he understood why. It was not like being hurt above the waist, not like taking a dagger to the chest or side or shoulder. Instead, the pain was curiously detached, _further away _somehow. He remembered trying to move and failing, his leg simply giving way underneath him.

He pushed up onto his elbows, tried to stop thinking. The bed beneath him was warm, the covers rumpled. He could smell the Seer, and vaguely remembered that she had said she was going downstairs to see Mhaere and ask after Elrenna. _That must mean I'm not about to die,_ he thought wryly.

He flipped the sheets aside, saw that he was wearing nothing past the thick bandage wound around his thigh. He pressed his fingertips around the edge of the bandage, winced. The skin there was warm, but not running with sweat, and no blood showed through. Sighing, he flopped back on the pillows and concluded that he was going nowhere fast.

A knock at the door jolted him out of his thoughts, and then he heard Jaiyan call softly, "Imloth? Are you awake?"

He jerked the sheets back up to his waist. "Yes?"

The door swung in, and she smiled when she stepped inside. She was clad in clean leggings and shirt, an old blue tunic pulled hastily over the top. Her hair was loose and clean, and he thought that perhaps her face had a little more colour.

Imloth smiled back. "How do you feel?"

"Better." She sat on the end of the bed, folded her legs up under herself. "You?"

"I'll live." He looked at her again, saw the way she was twisting her hands together. "You look…a lot more like yourself."

She grinned. "You sound a lot more like yourself."

He flushed. She meant the way he had snarled venomously at her in drow, the way he had glared at her when she moved him across the cell. "I'm sorry about that. I was in pain, and I…"

"Relax. I'm teasing you. I've called people some fairly filthy things when I've been hurt before. At least you had the decency to do it in a language I don't speak."

"Oh." He stared down at his hands, loosely linked on the covers. "How's Valen?"

"Sleeping." She frowned, rubbed a hand across her forehead. "Pretending everything's alright. Pretending…I don't know."

"You haven't talked about it."

"No. Not properly."

"There'll be time. You should probably be sleeping as well."

"In the middle of the day?" She smirked at him, but the worried strain in her eyes did not vanish entirely. "You expect me to just sit in a tavern and _sleep _when I haven't had a decent drink in days?"

Imloth snorted. "You're braver than me. At the moment I'm too scared of what Durnan might say to me."

"You're not scared of anything." She leaned her chin on her hand. "Imloth, I just wanted…I wanted to thank you. For coming after us. For finding us."

He inclined his head. "You are most welcome."

"I mean, you didn't have to, you could've just…"

"Didn't _have_ to?" He laughed. "You are joking, yes? You expect me to have defied both the Seer _and_ Durnan? Besides, I know both you and Valen would have been foolish enough to do the same for us."

"Yes." Her eyes darted away, rested finally on her knuckles again.

Imloth watched her face, noticing again how her eyes were blue, but nothing like Valen's. Softer, a darker shade, and not at all unsettling. He had wondered once if that had something to do with Jaiyan's utterly human heritage, but Durnan had just snorted at him upon being asked and told him that unlike drow, surfacers were not stuck with two or three colours to look through.

"Imloth, can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Why…why are you both still here?"

"In Waterdeep, you mean?" When she nodded, he said, "We talked about travelling. Moving on somewhere else. But here…"

"You're safe," she said. "Do you think you ever will?"

"I don't know." He shrugged lightly. "Maybe. But then, what if we're too far away to help when you get yourselves into more trouble?"

Jaiyan laughed, a little unevenly. "Thanks, Imloth. Right, I'm going to go find a tankard that I just know has my name on it. If Durnan asks, do you want me to tell him you're at death's door and can't possibly be bothered?"

Imloth grinned. "Tell him I'm already dead."

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The taproom was nearly deserted, washed in pale sunlight and delightfully warm. Jaiyan ambled across the old, rough floorboards and idly tried to work out how late in the season it must be. The handful of soldiers sitting at one of the tables were not wearing capes, and the trader in the corner had his sleeves pushed back. Still, Waterdeep never warmed up properly until the summer was in full swing, so Jaiyan did not hold out much hope that the city outside would be sleepy and hot. And besides, once the days turned too warm, she tended to whine about it, and wish for the autumn rains.

Another quick look across the room showed her Deekin and Dakesh at the small table in the corner. The mercenary had one foot propped up on the spare stool. Opposite him, Deekin was gesturing wildly with both arms, while the mercenary watched with an eyebrow arched and an expression not unlike resignation.

Jaiyan grinned, leaned her elbows on the bar, and stared into Durnan's face.

"Ah. You're up, are you?" Durnan folded his arms. "Mind telling me just what you were thinking?"

She winced. "How about a drink to wash down the lecture?"

He growled, but found a clean tankard. Another glare followed, while he filled it to brimming and pushed it across. "Well?"

"I was an idiot," she said baldly.

"No surprise there."

"Thanks." She gulped at the ale, closed her eyes as the warm, familiar taste flooded her mouth. "I thought…gods, Durnan. I don't know what I thought. I wanted to see Sigil, and I thought we'd be alright. We were, for most of it. Worked some escort duty."

"Sigil. So just because you've chosen a tiefling means you think you can stay alive in Sigil?" Durnan sighed. "Missy, _I've_ not been to Sigil, and the few I've known who have, came back changed if they came back at all."

"_You're_ the one who sent me down to the Underdark," she said pointedly.

"You volunteered."

"_You_ put the call out."

"You met your young man down there, missy, so don't be putting the blame on me for that." Durnan glowered a moment longer before grinning. "Good to have you back."

"Good to be back." She stared down into the tankard. "Durnan, I'm really sorry about Imloth."

"He'll be fine," the innkeeper said gruffly. "Pinned like a damn butterfly through the leg, but she fixed him. Nasty place to get hurt, the thigh."

"Yes. I thought he was going to bleed out before we could move him."

"How's your young man?" Something softened in Durnan's face. "He looked like he'd just run to the end of the world and back."

"Sleeping," she answered. "He needs sleep and food. He'll be…alright."

Not at all fooled, Durnan looked sharply at her. "What about you, missy? You alright?"

"You know me. Tough as old boot leather and just as disagreeable."

"You're half right." Durnan leaned on the bar, sighed. "What happened? Deekin told me something about storming a fortress, setting gates on fire and his friend chopping his way through thousands of guards, but I lost him around the time he started talking about killing cambions and crawling through tunnels."

"Just the one cambion." Jaiyan swirled the last few inches of her drink around. "Old ally of Valen's master. Seems the Blood Wars doesn't stop once you escape."

"He caught you both."

"Yes. Picked us clean out of a tavern room, some kind of spell." She drained the tankard, pushed it back across to Durnan. Wordlessly, he refilled it. "Woke up in a cell. He didn't feed us much. And then he started torturing us."

"Torturing..?"

"Yes. Good old-fashioned whips and chains." She wrinkled her nose. "And not in any appreciably filthy way, either." She drew in a deep breath and told him the rest in spare, unadorned sentences. How the cambion had dragged her out, how she had tricked the slave who brought her food. How she had run into Imloth in the tunnel and tried to punch his windpipe out. "He snuck up on me in the dark," she pointed out. "What was I meant to do?"

Durnan chuckled. "I'd've done the same."

She hurried through the last part, but she did tell him how indignantly surprised the cambion had been upon learning Deekin's role. "Never seen someone so angry," she mused. "Then again, it's not everyday your slave-trading fortress gets infiltrated by a kobold. I'd've been pretty furious, too."

"So what's the plan now, missy? Go gallivanting off to some other plane and get yourself trussed up for some other monster? Or maybe something simple, like plundering some long-forgotten city for treasure? Maybe go hurtling up Mount Celestia?"

She groaned. "Alright. I suppose I deserved that. But are you _really_ going to say that kind of thing _every time_ you ask me a question?"

"For quite a while, yes." Durnan smirked mercilessly. "You didn't answer."

"Stay here, I guess." She lifted the tankard to her lips again.

"Oh, really? Imposing on my charity again?"

"Why not? It's not like you've ever thrown us out before."

"Always a first time, missy."

She laughed. "You've got your drow back safe and sound, and Deekin can sing. Pretending to complain about it won't work."

"Aye, and you brought another damn tiefling back with you." Durnan jerked his head towards the table in the corner. "What do you think this is, some home for all the waifs and strays you just happen to bump into?"

"He's Deekin's waif and stray, so you'll have to ask him." She grinned up at him. "Admit it, Durnan. You miss us when we're not here."

"Sometimes." Durnan studied her thoughtfully. "You really alright?"

"I will be. Durnan?"

"What?"

She shrugged, not quite able to meet his eyes. "Thanks."

He grunted, pulled out a tray, lined up three full tankards. "You're welcome. Now get over there and talk to that damn kobold. You're cluttering up my bar."

Jaiyan smiled, accepted the tray. She did not miss the worried look Durnan shot her from beneath lowered brows as she turned away. She meandered through the tables, heard Deekin launching through a sweeping retelling of how they had crossed the Anauroch Desert in search of the mythal crystal and Heurodis. She laid the tray down, grinned across at Dakesh. "Have we got to the bit where I got turned into stone yet?

"_Boss_, that not be yet! Don't spoil the tension!"

"Well, given that I'm here now, I suppose it means that nothing really bad was going to happen to me."

"That not be the point." Deekin sniffed. "Deekin have to tell all about stinger nest and undead priest later."

Dakesh blinked slowly. "Undead priest?"

"Kel-Garas, was that his name, Deeks?"

"Yep."

"Right." Dakesh hooked up one of the tankards, drank. "Not one for a quiet life, I take it?"

"A quiet life is boring." Jaiyan exchanged a grin with the kobold. "How are you feeling?"

"Me?" The mercenary looked at her over the tankard rim. "I'm fine."

"You were bleeding from more than a few cuts and scrapes."

"I'm fine."

"Have it your way." She tugged her stool closer to the table, studied Dakesh sidelong. Sitting slouched on the bench, with his dark hair hanging over the sharp angles of his face and hiding his ears, he looked almost entirely human. The slightly-too-long bones of his fingers suggested otherwise, and he was eerily pale.

"So," she said. "I'm dying to know. Where exactly did Deekin find you, and how did he talk you into this?"

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The sharp click of the door closing woke Valen. For an uncomfortable, disorienting moment, his head whirled. He shut his eyes, slowly breathed in. He could feel clean sheets against his skin, and he was warm. _Waterdeep_, he thought. _You're back in Waterdeep, and you're alright. _He opened his eyes again, saw Jaiyan padding carefully across to the table, a plate with bread and cheese in one hand. "You don't have to slink. I'm awake."

She turned, smiled. "I've never been much good at slinking."

He sat up, ran a hand through his unkempt hair. "Did you see Imloth?"

"Yes. He's resting." She flopped down on top of the covers beside him, kissed his bare shoulder. "Did you know Deekin threatened Dakesh with a spell before offering him gold? And then he threatened some other huge demon with a lightning bolt?"

Valen smiled. "Is he insane or brave?"

"Both." She trailed her fingertips down his side, raised a shiver. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," he lied. He reached out, twisted a handful of her hair around his hand. "No. No, I'm not."

"I know." She settled herself closer to him. "Talk to me?"

_How? How do you say what it was like? Waiting, and alone, and flogged, and asked questions? _He remembered hearing the cell door swinging open, and the sounds of combat in the corridor beyond. He had been drifting halfway between sleep and awareness, and he was not sure if he was hearing things. He had seen too much of Grimash't in his thoughts, and some confused part of his mind had not known if he was seeing a memory or some hopeful dream.

He had heard her voice, calling his name, and had not wanted to open his eyes. "I thought…when you found me, I thought I was dreaming. I didn't want to find out that you weren't really there." But then she had touched his face and his hair, and said his name again. "But then you were there, and I…"

"Didn't quite believe it?" she asked softly.

"No, I…" He scowled. "No, you're right. I didn't. I wanted to, but…" _But he'd given me a chopped-off chunk of your hair, soaked in blood, and he wouldn't tell me what it meant. _"He said…Azraleth…he said he'd do things to you, find you and hurt you. He…didn't?"

"No. No, he didn't." Jaiyan leaned in, gently kissed him.

"He asked me things. Questions." Valen frowned again. _And you almost told him…_ "Jaiyan, I almost told him about the True Names."

"I know," she said, not harshly, not admonishing. "It's alright."

"No, it's not. He told me he was going to turn me back into…what I had been. That I was going to kill for him until I fell. And I…was stupid enough to tell him it could never happen, because my blood wasn't the same."

"I know," she said again, in that same measured tone. "Valen, love, it's alright. He came to me, and he was furious, ranting and snarling because you _hadn't_ told him. He knew that you knew something, that _we_ knew something, but he didn't get it out of you."

"Did he hurt you?"

"He hit me."

He opened his mouth to say something about how it was his fault, how if he had just kept quiet, it might not have happened, but she pressed her fingers over his lips.

"Don't," she said. "It's done. It's over."

_But it's not,_ he thought. _You're covered in new scars, and so is she, and if you'd said no, said that Sigil was too dangerous, none of this would have happened. Did you forget Cania so quickly? Did you really think you could protect her in Sigil? _She was his, and he had almost lost her. "Beloved?"

She traced a finger up one of his horns, across his scalp, and then around the other one. "Mmm?"

"I am not letting you out of my sight ever again."

She laughed. "That might prove awkward."

"I'm willing to risk it." He slid an arm around her, pulled her tightly against him, loving the easy, familiar way she fit against the crook of his shoulder.

"Valen?"

"Yes?" He found the hem of her tunic, worked his fingers underneath it until he found her shirt.

"Did you know Dakesh is a tiefling?"

He stopped, his fingertips against her skin. "Yes. I could tell."

"How?"

"I don't know. Tieflings just have a certain…look, I suppose. A certain way they hold themselves." He slid his hand up the slope of her waist. "Even if they don't look much like you'd expect a tiefling to look."

"Yes. He looks…almost human." She grinned. "Sort of."

Valen looked sharply at her. From what little he had seen of the mercenary, he was tall and lean and had deep, sardonic dark eyes. A thick mop of dark hair, and he sword he knew how to handle. And he had fought with grace and a predatory tenacity. And he had helped rescue them, had helped Jaiyan long before they stepped into Valen's cell. He _knew_ it was pointless, ridiculous even, but something disgruntled coiled in his stomach. "Oh, really?"

"Oh, stop it." She flicked one of his horns. "Valen my love, I promise you, you are the only tiefling for me."

He peered suspiciously at her. "You're making fun of me."

"Yes, but only because you're easy to make fun of." Her hand wandered across his chest, dipped past his side, and found his tail where it was curled across the sheet. "Besides, you've got a tail. That gets you leagues ahead, as far as I'm concerned."

He frowned again. "I…should be taking that as a compliment? I think?"

She grinned wickedly at him, and kissed the spaded end of his tail. "The very best kind of compliment."

He shuddered. "Harpy."

"I don't hear you complaining," she said archly.

Valen tried to think straight enough to retort, but one of her hands was sliding up his tail while the other trailed down his chest. "Jaiyan, my love?"

She grinned and leaned down, traced the hollow of his hip with her tongue. "Yes?"

"Stop teasing me and come here."


	25. Chapter 25

_**Chapter Twenty-Five – Missing**_

The dagger flew end over end, hit an inch too far from the target's centre to prove entirely satisfying. Nathyrra sighed, threw another one, and was slightly gratified when it thunked in halfway to the hilt and a hairsbreadth closer. Another two, and the simmering knot of tension in her chest dwindled a little. Months ago, she would have taken herself down to the practice fields and simply thrown knives or sparred with Imloth until the anger turned into sweat and exhaustion.

Now, she had nothing but herself, her daggers, and a line of soldiers trying not to look at their Matron Mother as she hurled another blade at the target. Their drill master snapped out an order to fall back in line and resume sparring. Nathyrra smiled to herself and wondered what they must think of her. Alone, coiled with fury, and throwing daggers with enough force to leave her shoulders aching.

She had left Andaryn in her chambers, and she could not quite bring herself to go back there, not yet, not after what he had told her. The meeting with her councilors had gone as expected, with her female clerics suggesting restraint, and the traders wanting direct action. She had agreed to a small party sent out within the next day or so, laden down with weapons and cloth for trading, their aim to find the duergar-run settlement her scouts reported still stood some days travel to the north.

Lith My'athar had never quite been big enough to be entirely self-sufficient, not in the way of Menzoberranzan, anyway. In the city of her birth, merchants had run slaves and cloth and jewels and perfume through the streets. _Except here,_ she thought, _we have no slaves, and thus no slaves to trade. _In Menzoberranzan, and any other city she had visited, the trading of flesh had been inescapable, useful, and profitable. Under the Seer, Lith My'athar had survived as an outpost – they dared not trade directly with other drow, but tended to buy from duergar, or even svirfneblin on occasion. Drow-style weaponry and armour was sometimes stolen wholesale from raiding parties, along with anything else the Seer's scouts could strip from dead adversaries.

_But no slaves, ever, under the Seer's decree. _

She could not be swayed on such an issue, and while Nathyrra would not have minded the extra coin, she found herself wavering in the same direction. She had seen slaves in Menzoberranzan, surface creatures and svirfneblin, duergar sometimes, drow males who had fallen out of favour, and even elves and humans, collared and alone and with all the fight beaten out of them. Her mother had preferred drow slaves for her household, but Nathyrra recalled passing the trading posts in the city, and hearing the slavemasters calling prices for pale-skinned surfacers, for beautiful elves with long golden hair, for tall, hulking trolls. A male she had once enjoyed a few nights with had sworn by surfacer slaves; easy to break, he said, and easy to keep broken.

Before the Seer had sent her through the caverns to Undermountain to meet the prophesied saviour of Lith My'athar, Nathyrra had never seen a human female up close. There had been plenty in cages in Menzoberranzan, screaming to be released, or else scared silent, most of them half-naked and terrified, with the marks of whips on their faces and shoulders. This one had been different though, as the Seer had cautioned, and had been less cowed and more indignant at her predicament.

A long time ago, before the Valsharess had come to Menzoberranzan and chosen her for the Red Sisters, Nathyrra's eldest sister had invited her into her household for some time. She had learned a little more of house politics, and had enjoyed toying with her sister's favourite males, and had met her sister's elven slave. He had been a little taller than her, maybe Imloth's height, and thoroughly broken by the family's paid slavemaster. She remembered the way his hands had shaken, delivering drinks on a tray, and how he had quailed when her sister had suggested that perhaps a more intimate type of service might one day suit her. He had been exquisite, in that very elven way, though Nathyrra had never dared to voice her appreciation. Hair the colour of yellow silk, and eyes that were a clear and strange shade of green. His face had not been all that different, all sharp angles and high cheekbones, but his skin was soft and white and smooth, and so odd. Upon asking, her sister had explained that he had been caught by a surface raiding party, and had survived long enough to end up in Menzoberranzan. Nathyrra had considered asking for him, but he had been so broken, and her sister so unimpressed. He was another slave, another body bringing food and wine and fine silks, and Nathyrra was certain her sister barely acknowledged him below the neck, despite her taunts.

She remembered her embarrassed surprise at discovering Lith My'athar was home to no slaves, and how she had blurted, _"But then, who does all the labour? The work that no one else cares to?"_

_"We do," the Seer answered. "And we have servants, still, but they are not whipped."_

She had learned that things were different in Lith My'athar, that recruits were not flogged to bleeding when they made mistakes, that females could not order males half-killed for looking at them sidelong, that males could not plot and attempt to kill females in their sleep without reprisal.

Nathyrra stalked up to the target, yanked her daggers out. She had to make some kind of decision concerning Andaryn, she knew, and yet she was tempted again to lie outright to her councilors. They had asked for answers, for a reason as to why he was here, and why it had taken him so long to talk.

_"Too many days have slipped past," the female cleric snapped. "You keep him closeted away, you let him out to help on the practice fields, and then you spirit him away again. What exactly does our Matron Mother see in him that is so important? Or is he merely comely to look upon?"_

_"I would not see him accidentally dead because one of my councilors decided to administer a personal sort of justice." Nathyrra leaned on the table. "I know most of you think we should close the city to outsiders of any kind. I disagree." _

_"Does he pose a threat to the city?" The cleric's voice rang clear and confident. "Matron Mother? Does he?"_

_"No," she said. Apprehension needled the base of her spine; she was not lying, not really, but still, she felt cold. _

_"Then we are owed some proof." The cleric folded her arms. Murmurs of assent rippled up from the soldiers on her left side. "Bring him down to us, and let him speak for himself." _

_And say what, Nathyrra wondered? That he been with a scouting group come to grief in the most horrific way? That he had been the single survivor, and she was still not quite sure how? That he had been present when the female in charge of his party had been murdered? _

_But she had little other choice than to mutter something about organizing a council soon, all of them, clerics and merchants and soldiers, and Andaryn to tell them his story. _

Nathyrra rammed her last dagger into the sheath hanging from her hip. Her mother had more than once berated her for her quick temper – or rather, for how obviously and easily she gave in to it. How she resorted too soon to violence, rather than falling back on quieter, more sly methods. She would make an efficient assassin, her mother told her, but her too-swift reliance on her daggers in place of the more subtle skills of betrayal would see her a poor Matron Mother, if she ever survived that long.

She discovered Andaryn still sitting at her casement, his crimson eyes fixed on the marketplace. He did not turn when she opened the door, but the line of his back tightened.

"Tell me the rest." She unbuckled one of her weapon belts, dumped it on the nearest table. The other she kept, the weight somehow comforting. "Now."

"What else is there to tell?"

"I have just told my councilors that you are not dangerous. Prove me right, and tell me the rest."

His head turned first, and then he swung himself all the way around. "Why, Mistress. Lying on my behalf again?"

Very slowly, Nathyrra wrapped a hand around a dagger hilt. "The rest."

"What should I tell you?" Something raw broke through his voice. "Should I tell you how we ran, leaving Saerith's broken body? Should I tell you how those…things…cut them down? All of them?"

"You lived. How?"

His shoulders were rigid beneath his shirt. "I _ran_, Mistress. Ran like I never knew I could. I ran until I was nearly dropping, and still they came after me. These…things in the darkness. Things I could not see."

"What happened?"

"I kept running." He smiled, flat and challenging. "I was injured."

The healer who had seen him had attested to the strain forced upon the wounds on his legs. The gashes on his back looked ragged and raked-open, perhaps caused by something leaping at him from behind while he bolted. "How did you lose them?"

"I don't know. The first three days, I just ran. Didn't sleep, didn't eat, just ran and bled all over the stone behind me. The fourth day, I holed up in a small cave and bandaged myself up, drank the last of the healing potions, and started running again."

"And the…things?"

"They followed, and they found me." His lips parted in a feline, mocking smile. "So I ran again."

"What did you eat?"

"Anything I could find, which wasn't much. I had to stay clear of outposts and guard camps…I imagine the Valsharess would not have been pleased if I had returned alone and without her bounty."

Nathyrra lifted her head, and met his smirk. "The Valsharess is dead."

"What..?" His face barely changed, a slight terseness around his mouth, perhaps. "How do you know this?"

"I was at her fortress." Nathyrra found the chair, spun it around, and sat. "While you were off down in the darkness, looking for these…whatever they were…the Valsharess was killed."

"How long ago?"

"Some months. From what you've said, I imagine not long after she sent Saerith with your scouts."

"How?" His red eyes were bright, the smile beneath brittle. "_Who?_"

"A surfacer," Nathyrra said. "A surfacer opened her throat."

"Well, it seems I am…somewhat ignorant. Perhaps, Matron Mother, you will regale me with the hows and the whys and who exactly was brave or insane enough to take on the Valsharess?"

"Perhaps. Later." Nathyrra rested her chin on her hands. She could see the buried tension in him, even halfway across the room. Even if he had been honest, and he held no loyalty or admiration for the Valsharess, it was a strange thing to be told that such a female had met her end. The Valsharess had commanded many hundreds of soldiers, and had sought to bring the Underdark beneath her sway. Only Imloth had been into the throne room on that day, to find the Arch-devil loose and Jaiyan missing, and the Valsharess, dead on the floor, her throat gaping to the neck bone. _What had that been like, seeing her there, knowing she could die as badly as any breathing creature? _"Go on. Why did you come here?"

"It was here," he said. "That is all. I did not know where I was."

She supposed she would have done the same, running blind and having little choice. She knew how the press of mere shadows and the close, cold touch of stone could send thoughts wild. _And that's without anything actually being there_, she thought. True enough, she had never heard of these things, whatever Andaryn claimed they were, but she knew the Underdark, and its strangeness, and its way of hiding things in forgotten caverns. She herself had stumbled upon odd things in low tunnels, and she recalled Imloth talking of the dracolich Valen and Jaiyan had encountered and defeated.

A tentative knock at the door jarred her. She twisted round, glared as the door opened, and a drow male paused, head down and hands clasped. She recognized him as a gate guard, and remembered that he was young and too earnest and a little too heavily built to suit her tastes. "Yes?"

"Matron Mother." His eyes darted up briefly. "I looked in the council chambers, but I could not find you."

She waved a hand impatiently. "Carry on."

"The patrol, Matron Mother. Yesterday's. They…have not returned."

"The patrol?" She pushed up from the chair. "The scouts?"

"Yes, Matron Mother."

_A routine patrol,_ she thought. _Moving out not quite half a day from the city, so they should have been back_. "They're not too late," she said, but it sounded false even to herself. "Double the watch at the gates. Let me know if…if anything happens."

"Matron Mother…your councilors are at the gates. They…wish to see you."

_Oh, they do, do they?_ "Very well. Tell them I will be there shortly."

While the male sprinted away, Nathyrra picked up her abandoned dagger belt, yanked the buckles taut and looked across to Andaryn. "You're coming with me."

"I am, Mistress?"

"Yes. I will not be accused again of keeping you hidden."

"And if I am asked questions?"

"Then answer them," she snapped. "But say nothing of what attacked you, or of the Valsharess."

He grinned. "Such deception, Mistress. Is it really necessary?"

"If you want to keep your head attached to your neck a little longer, then yes."

"Ah." He joined her at the door, gave her a speculative look. "I throw myself upon your better judgment yet again, Mistress."

He was silent during the walk to the gates, and Nathyrra found herself dropping back into her own thoughts. She had not lost a soldier or scout since Waterdeep, so she wondered if the biting unease she felt was merely old fear. _That, or you're just over-reacting. _Andaryn fell a step behind her, and she looked up to see most of her councilors, the cleric already haranguing the guards.

"There you are." The cleric turned, arched an eyebrow. "What are your thoughts, Matron Mother?"

"Double the gate guard."

"And?"

"And if they have not returned tomorrow, we look for them."

"Strange, is it not? It has been so peaceful, until…Well. I am sure you have your reasons, Matron Mother." The cleric shrugged and smiled. Her crimson eyes slid to Andaryn. "I see your pet is still breathing."

Nathyrra drew in a slow breath and wondered if she could order the cleric's execution simply due to the needling lilt in her voice. "Yes. He'll be joining our scouts."

"Good. He can help them look for our missing patrol." The cleric's eyes gleamed again. "I am sure his knowledge will prove most useful."

_He had nothing to do with it. _But to say anything in protest would seem weak, and besides, Nathyrra was not entirely sure. _He's been in the city all this time. He's barely been near the gates, and besides, even if he's lying about something, he came here half-dead. Unless…_

A terrible, cold thought struck her. She inclined her head at the cleric, repeated her orders about the patrol, and strode away. All the muscles along her shoulders were knotting by the time she vaulted up the temple steps, Andaryn behind her. Drow knew how to lie, and she considered herself rather good at it, even if she had never quite been able to deceive her mother properly. It was _possible_ he had lied; always possible. Yet she had seen him, that first day, after her guards had beaten him unconscious. Had seen the haunted, lingering unease in his eyes when he woke. The fear that he _almost_ hid behind, those times he spoke of what he had seen.

She pushed the doors open, stalked into the high chamber beyond, saw that it was deserted, the air around the statues swirling with incense. "Do you know something?"

Andaryn paused warily. "What can you mean, Mistress?"

"You know what I mean." When he stayed stubbornly silent, she grated, "Have you been followed?"

"I don't know," he said, his voice low.

She looked at him, at the sharp curves of his cheekbones, the defiant tilt of his head. He had the same fierce crimson eyes she had seen on too many insolent males, and she suddenly wanted to strike the obstinacy from him. "The truth, Andaryn. _Were you followed?_"

"No," he snarled. "No, I…I don't know. That is the truth, Mistress. _I don't know_."

Nathyrra turned away from him. She stalked across to the stairs, and relief broke through her when he did not attempt to follow. She loosened her hand around the dagger hilt, jumped the stairs two at a time. Back inside her chambers, she paced and tried to think. Her hands kept snapping up to her hair, tangling in her braids and twisting.

_Could be nothing. Just a late patrol. _

_This is the _Underdark_. Patrols are _never _just late. _

Short months ago, a missing patrol would have sent the city into the kind of silent, alert preparation that usually marks the beginning of a war. _Could be anything_, she thought. She knew the twelve-strong patrol had survived Waterdeep, and the attack on the Valsharess' fortress. _They're not recruits. They're not young. They're not about to go stumbling into an umber hulk cave. They're not about to get themselves cornered by a raiding party. _

Nathyrra exhaled slowly. _What the hells would the Seer do? Pray, and receive some answer,_ she thought sourly. _What would Imloth do?_

_Double the gate guards, send reinforcements out tomorrow, and find out what's happened to them. Move on from there. Can't do anything until you know more. _

She quartered the length of the room again, and then twice more before deciding that the tension in her spine was not going to vanish quickly. She considered returning to the practice fields, but she had no wish to see her councilors, or Andaryn. _See him again too soon, and you're liable to just kill him because you decided to keep him alive_. She laughed, and it quickly became the sort of small sigh that Imloth had once called ominous.

She stalked to the door, whipped it open. Snarled for her servants, and glared when they finally emerged around the corner. "Find Jalraen, and send him here."

The nearest servant ducked his head. "Yes, Matron Mother. Shall I tell him to prepare to remain a while?"

"Just send him up here," she snapped. She strode back into her chambers, still simmering. She slowly unclenched her fists and tried to force her thoughts towards Jalraen.

He was among her current favourites, young and slender and handsome, all lean muscle and a shock of thick hair that barely brushed his collarbones. There was an uncertain, almost sweet hesitancy about him between her bedsheets that she discovered she sometimes enjoyed. She had discovered him at the forge, helping the blacksmiths, and learning how to bend metal into the curling, odd shapes that drow favoured for their armour.

She found the decanter, poured two glasses of white wine. The crisp, clean taste filled her mouth, and she remembered that she had shared a bottle of the same wine with Andaryn, that first day.

The door opened, and she heard soft footfalls. "Matron Mother?"

She turned, managed a smile for Jalraen. She beckoned him closer, handed him the other glass. "You've been sparring?"

He was still wearing rough training leathers, and she could smell new sweat and the tang of weapon oil on him. "Yes, Matron Mother."

More than a few times, she had asked to be called by name, at least when alone with him, or any of her others. They very rarely did, and she supposed she understood why. "Sword?"

"Yes. And quarterstaff." He lifted the glass, quickly swallowed.

She watched him, followed the graceful motion of his hand and arm when he laid the glass back down. More than any of the others, this one liked to talk, and while she usually indulged him, today she found herself searching for patience and finding little. "Come here."

Jalraen obeyed, stepped up beside her. His crimson eyes flickered, expectant beneath loose hair. When she nodded wordlessly, he reached out, loosened the ties that held her braids in place. He feathered his hands through her hair, leaned in to kiss the side of her neck. "Matron Mother? What pleasure would you care for first?"

She swiped a hand across her forehead and sighed. "Oh, I don't know. Decide."

"Mistress?"

She grimaced, suddenly infuriated with the way his eyes widened. "Oh, just take your clothes off and lie down."

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Late afternoon sunlight filled the taproom. The windows nearest the door were open, letting in the shouts of merchants in the street beyond, and the clattering of horse hooves against cobbles. Jaiyan made her way between the tables, walking carefully and inwardly cursing every throbbing muscle in her legs. She flopped down onto a stool next to Deekin, and sighed when he did not bother to look up from the huge pile of parchment spread in front of him. "Deeks?"

His quill paused long enough to dip into his inkwell. "Yes, Boss?"

"I'm dying."

"Boss been sparring?"

"Yes." She leaned her elbows on the table and groaned. Valen had been adamant about falling back into their old routine quickly, and while part of her approved, she just _knew_ she was going to end up sore and aching and hating everything. The days spent in Azraleth's fortress had left her out of practice and, while she could still swing her sword properly, Valen's idea of an afternoon's friendly sparring had proved punishing. He had dragged Imloth out with them, since the drow had been pronounced healed and ordered out of bed by the Seer.

"Boss spar with Goat-man?"

"No. Just with Imloth."

The drow had gone a little easy on her at first, until Valen barked at him for being too soft. She had glared at the tiefling, and accused him of being cruel, and the deep, lingering kiss he had bribed her with had almost worked. Still, she knew she needed it, needed to be out in the sunlight and concentrating on nothing but the sound of wood and metal meeting. _Nothing at all to worry about apart from whether her footwork was balanced, whether she was moving fast enough. _

"Boss win?"

"We were sparring. No one _wins_ at sparring."

He gave her a slow look over the jumping end of his quill.

"No, I didn't win." When she received no reply, she added, "But that's only because I'm tired, and Imloth's just too damn fast. Even when he's playing nice."

It _had_ felt good, though, even if she had not quite admitted it. Uncomplicated, and reassuring, and somehow normal. _And besides, there's no time for thinking when you're trying not to get hit in the gut by a drow. _

"Goat-man still be outside?"

"Yes." She looked across the taproom, motioned for the girl at the bar. "Trouncing Imloth, last I saw."

"Imloth be good fighter."

"Yes, but Valen's huge." A sudden rush of heat coloured her face. "Tall."

Deekin snorted, but said nothing. He dipped the quill in the ink again, scrawled another line.

"A new song, Deeks?"

"Yep. This be tale of Deekin and Dakesh charging through Sigil to rescue Boss and Goat-man."

She grinned. "Any chance you could make me seem a little less…well, captured and chained up, and a little more…heroic?"

"Nope."

The bar girl laid a tankard in front of her, frothing nicely around the brim. Jaiyan nodded her thanks, sipped at the ale. "Didn't think so. I just thought I'd ask."

"Well, _Deekin_ not silly enough to get kidnapped by demons."

"True." Her gaze wandered over the parchment, fixed on his small fingers, wrapped around the quill. "Deekin?"

"Yes, Boss?"

"Thank you. For everything."

He smiled and shrugged. "Deekin just help Boss."

She stared down into the tankard, swallowed hard. "I thought…I thought I might never see you again."

"Really?" He dropped the quill, gave her a searching look. "Boss not…just worried about Goat-man?"

"Of course I was. And stop fishing."

"Fishing? What Boss means?"

"Fishing. Looking. For me to dramatically correct you." She reached out, squeezed his hand. His scales were cool and dry under her fingers. "I don't want to lose you."

Deekin blinked rapidly. "Good. Because Boss not going anywhere again without Deekin. Deekin not want to have to rescue Boss again like that."

"It was like…do you remember in Cania? How hopeless it all felt sometimes?"

He nodded slowly. "Deekin remembers. About snow, and Goat-man, and Goat-man's blood."

"Yes. And you were there, for all of it." She gulped down more of the ale, hoped it might wash away the thickness in her throat. "But this time, I was on my own."

"Yep. But only because Boss silly enough to go to Sigil and get Goat-man tiefling-napped by demons."

She groaned. "I get the point. And that's not a word."

Deekin sighed theatrically. "Goat-man not be person, though. Not be human."

"But you call him Goat-_man_," she protested.

"Yep, but only because of what he _looks_ like."

Jaiyan shook her head. "I'm not even going to try and understand." She peered down into the dregs of the tankard and wondered if it was too soon to ask for another. "Where's Dakesh?"

Deekin shuffled his parchment back into order, stacked it neatly in front of him. "He be out. Exploring city."

"On his own?"

Deekin shrugged. "He say he want to…get a feel for the streets here."

The mercenary was capable, she knew, and his heritage was not particularly obvious. True, up-close there was something strange in his eyes and his stance and his very pale skin, but she wondered if he would be more likely to be mistaken for someone descended from elves. Still, if Imloth and the Seer had managed not to get themselves into trouble, she supposed the mercenary would be alright. _But he doesn't have Durnan looking over his shoulder,_ she thought.

The bar girl wandered back over, gave them both tankards this time, and asked if they wanted food. Jaiyan declined, and Deekin asked if there was any cold meat pie in the kitchen. When the girl ambled away again, Jaiyan said, "Deeks, do you think he's coming back?"

"Dakesh?"

"Yes." It would be easy enough to slip out into the city, and keep on moving, and the mercenary had no real reason to stay. "You paid him, right?"

"Yep. But he not gone."

"How can you be sure?"

"Well, he be a creature of Sigil." Deekin tilted his head to one side. "And drow lady be only one we know who can open portals."

"True. He hasn't asked her?"

"Don't think so."

Jaiyan stared down into her drink for a long moment. "Deekin, do you trust him?"

"Yep."

"You hardly know him."

"Deekin knows. But…he came with Deekin, all the way." He circled one claw against the tabletop thoughtfully. "Boss hear what he say to cambion?"

"Yes." She had heard the words, spoken softly, that he knew Azraleth, that he was _something like_ a slave, whatever that meant.

She worked her way through her drink silently, listening to the crackling sound of Deekin flipping parchment and reading over the day's verses. The girl returned with a generous slab of meat pie and cut cheese and pickled onions. Deekin thanked her profusely, and Jaiyan laughed at the way he eyed the pie. "Sigil food not your favourite?"

"Deekin be kobold. Deekin eat nearly anything. But Deekin like food here." He held out a pickled onion. "Deekin not like these, though."

Solemnly, she accepted it. "Send them my way, then."

Deekin had cleared up a good half of the plate by the time Valen and Imloth dragged themselves across the taproom. Valen was flushed and sweating, his red hair clinging to his neck. The drow looked similarly tired, and he winced as he sat down. Jaiyan hopped off the stool, slouched on the bench next to Valen. "Any bloodshed?"

His arm curled around her waist, pulled her closer. "No, actually."

Imloth snorted. "Close enough. You beat me…what's the way you say it? Black and blue?"

Jaiyan smirked. "Do you want me to make the obvious joke?"

"Why not? I've already taken a lot of punishment today." Imloth leaned the side of his head on crossed forearms. "Oh…black and blue…drow…I understand."

Valen leaned over, casually broke part of the crust off Deekin's pie, and ignored the kobold's shriek of protest. "I'm hungry."

"Deekin be hungry also! Deekin not ever steal Goat-man's food!"

Entirely unrepentant, Valen scooped up a chunk of beef. "And were you outside for most of the afternoon, sparring?"

"Deekin not that mad. Deekin prefer to be _inside_. Writing."

Valen purloined a slice of cheese, then held his hands up. "No more, I promise."

Jaiyan leaned into the crook of his shoulder. "Thieving tiefling." She kissed his chin. "Are you alright?"

"Yes." He smiled. "Still hungry, though."

"Good." Against her, the rise and fall of his chest was rhythmic and lulling. He had woken up at least twice during the night that she knew of, jerking upright and startling her awake. She had guided him back down beside her, and held him until he stopped shaking. He said that he had been dreaming, dreaming that the chains were still on him, and that she was dead, and that he knew that because the cambion had shown him.

"_I'm here," she said, gently. His hands were running up and down her back, pausing only to sift through her hair. "I'm here. We're in Waterdeep. I'm here."_

He had fallen back into sleep eventually, curled tightly against her, breathing against her shoulder. Early sunlight had stirred her, and she had realised that he had barely moved, was still wrapped around her. He had not wanted to get up, even when she whined and told him she was about to perish from starvation. Mere weeks ago, she would have pried him off her and gone in search of breakfast on her own. But she had not wanted to leave him there, not with that strange, distant look in his eyes.

"Jaiyan, did you hear me?"

She blinked. "Yes..?"

Valen grinned. "You're a bad liar, my love."

"Sorry. Day-dreaming."

"You're allowed."

His hand tightened against her hip, so she stayed there, leaning against him and listening to Deekin writing. Imloth excused himself, and Jaiyan noticed him walking gingerly. "You didn't hurt him, did you?"

"Not much." When she raised an eyebrow, Valen sighed and explained, "He's out of practice as much as us. He's been sparring with Durnan, but I imagine it's not quite the same."

"I don't know, Durnan has a mean right hook when he wants to." She understood, though, and knew that Valen had needed it as much Imloth's slipping sparring habits might have.

The afternoon drifted on, and eventually the sun fled, leaving the taproom full of pale twilight. Soldiers and travelers stamped in from outside, calling for dinner and spiced wine. A carriage clattered past, and the wheels screeched against the cobbles as it swung around into the stable yard. Durnan lit the fire, said something about keeping the edge off the coming night; late spring in Waterdeep could quickly turn crisp. Deekin declared his first eight stanzas complete, and ambled off to find his lute, along with a promise to regale the entire taproom when he returned.

By the time the moon rose, and Jaiyan had helped Valen with a dinner of roast venison, the door opened again, letting in smoke and chill air and Dakesh. He looked windblown and slightly perplexed. His gaze crossed the room, and Jaiyan saw his face change when he noticed Deekin, ensconced at the hearth and careening his way through a song.

Jaiyan beckoned him over, grinned when the mercenary's eyes kept flicking over to the kobold.

"Does he do this a lot?"

"Mostly. You'd be surprised how many coins he'll get by the end of the night."

"He said he sang, but…"

"He never said he was actually a bard?" Jaiyan's smile widened. "Are you hungry?"

Dakesh tugged his hood down, brushed his hair over his ears. "Oh. Yes."

Jaiyan motioned Durnan across, asked for a plate for Dakesh, and another round of drinks. Beside her, Valen was silent again, his arm firmly around her waist, and his tail looping around her knee. "Did you like the city?"

"Yes," Dakesh answered. "It's…not at all what I'm used to."

"You mean the sky's often blue here?"

A slight smile curved his mouth. "Among other things."

With a wild flourish, Deekin strummed out a final chord. He hopped up from the hearth, slung the lute over his shoulder, and beamed at the already liberal scattering of coins on the rug in front of him. He scooped most of them up, then meandered through the tables. "See how much already, Boss?"

"Nice work, Deeks."

Deekin jumped up onto the stool next to Dakesh, grinned at him. "See, Boss? Deekin was right."

Dakesh paused, his fork halfway to his mouth. "Right about what?"

"Deekin reckoned you'd be coming back," Jaiyan said mildly. "And I thought you might not be."

"Oh." He frowned. "You didn't take bets, did you?"

She laughed, pushed one of the tankards across to him. Valen's tail tightened around her leg, and she noticed how he was studying the mercenary through slightly narrowed eyes. She shifted, leaned her head against the side of his neck. His skin was hot, and she could feel his pulse thudding too fast. "No, no bets, but that's only because by now I should know that Deekin's always right."


	26. Chapter 26

_The usual disclaimer applies; most of the characters are not mine, and the settings certainly aren't. Reviews are always welcome. _

_**Chapter Twenty-Six – Discoveries **_

Nathyrra reached the gates before the second guard change of the day. She had slept little, even after banishing Jalraen. Brooking no argument, she had ordered Andaryn out of his chambers and down to the gates with her, and had sent a runner to find her highest-ranked female cleric. Now, she stood with one hand wrapped tight around a dagger hilt; a countering habit she had developed years ago, since she tended to tap buckles or pommels when she grew impatient.

The guards reported no sign of the missing patrol, and nothing moving out in the darkness. Waiting while her scout troop formed up, Nathyrra had vaulted up the steps, stayed poised at the tower, and stared out into the shadows. She could see the high rock ramparts ahead, and the wide, open area directly in front of the second guard tower. She remembered standing behind the gates of this city, shoulder to shoulder with Jaiyan, while Imloth hurtled down the steps, and the blackness was full of the noise of arrows.

The surfacer girl had proved grudgingly impressive; she had not buckled, even when the gates had fallen, even when she had to know that the tiefling was on the walls above, and likely to die. She had come into the armoury smelling of him, and some strange, jealous part of Nathyrra had twisted. Not because of who the tiefling was, but more for the sated, warm sense of something accomplished and _waited for _that clung to the girl. And when the arrow had come thudding down, and into Nathyrra's shoulder, the brown-haired surfacer girl had propped her up and walked her to the makeshift infirmary. And had ordered the wounded moved, after, and saved them, because the temple had toppled, awash with flame and the raw stink of spent spells.

Nathyrra had stayed, reluctantly, when Imloth had taken their soldiers to the Valsharess' fortress. Her injury gave her little room for argument, but even so, she had seethed when they left. Even the Seer had accompanied them, while _she_ had been made to stay behind, healing and helping with the wounded. Yes, she had been asked, and had accepted, but only because the sensible part of her knew she would not last, not with a fist-sized hole in her shoulder.

"Mistress?"

She shook herself, looked across into Andaryn's curious, crimson eyes. "Yes, what?"

"Nothing, Mistress. You merely looked…distracted."

She considered a venomous retort, swallowed it, and half turned away from him. He wore his borrowed armour with elegant disdain, and she had to admit the sword and daggers hanging from his belt suited him. He was still built whipcord thin, and the leathers hugged his slender shoulders and narrow waist. Further up, his long white hair was braided at his temples, knotted with leather and framing his face.

A face of hard angles and sharp lines, and not at all softened by his eyes. _Which were thickly-lashed, wine-red, and taunting. _

She was noticing again, so she whirled away properly, stared at the gates instead. She wanted to be past them, out in the darkness and looking for her missing patrol. The problem still remained, though, and she had spent the better part of the night wavering. The Seer would have stayed with the city, she knew; she was gifted, and a priestess, and even if she had once been a Matron Mother, her skills lay little in the letting of blood. But Nathyrra had been brought up to meet threats with steel, and her temper would not let her stay, given nothing to do but pace.

_You're going_, she thought. _You're going out there, and finding out what happened. Bring them all if you need to, but you're going out there. _

She heard footsteps, scraping deliberately against the ground. A quick look over her shoulder showed her the female cleric, still clad in robes and wearing a vaguely perplexed expression.

"Matron Mother? You asked for me?"

"Yes. You will be accompanying me, and the scout troop."

"I will?" The cleric blinked. "Is this entirely necessary?"

"But of course. I value your council."

The cleric stared back at her for a long, thoughtful moment. "My thanks, Matron Mother, but I am not prepared for a journey out into the caverns."

"No matter." Nathyrra smiled. "My scouts will carry enough provisions. We are well armed. You may bring only your spells, and I trust you rested well enough last night that you will come suitably equipped?"

The corners of the cleric's mouth twitched. "Yes, Matron Mother. I am at your command. What of your pet?"

"Oh, him?" Nathyrra looked derisively at Andaryn. "He will come with us. Perhaps to show us some use that he might have."

The cleric inclined her head. "As you wish it, Matron Mother."

Nathyrra inspected her scout troop as they formed up, checking weapons and armour and rations. She had picked fourteen, all male, all older than her, and all among the first to answer the Seer's call for allies. They knew little, though; had only been told they were to embark on a simple mission, their task to find remains or tracks. They were no fools, though, and Nathyrra knew that they would be wondering why her presence was required, and why she had brought the stranger, as well.

_Well, that will have to wait_. _For now, this is nothing more than reconnaissance._

She ordered the gates open, and waited while they formed up. She took her preferred place off to one side, saw her cleric do the same. A quick look over her shoulder showed her Andaryn, regarding her, his eyes narrow.

"In front of me, male," she said, quietly.

"Why, Mistress, do you intend to use me as a shield?" He grinned. "Or do you just fear a knife in the back in the dark?"

"A worthwhile concern, don't you think?"

His grin broadened. Without complaint, he moved off ahead of her, flanked one of the male scouts. "I'm wounded, Mistress, by your painful distrust."

She snorted, did not bother to retort. Trust of any kind was a luxury she dared little afford, even in Lith My'athar. She did not _quite_ believe he would attempt an assassination, not outnumbered like this. _But even so, you're taking him back out into the darkness, and gods know what he saw out there. _

Out through the gates, and the air tasted rougher, more like stone and dust. Overhead, the cavern arched up, thick with shadows and too high to make out any detail. The lead scout picked up the pace, and they followed, strung out behind him in loose formation. Close enough that they could bunch up and defend if attacked, and yet with enough space that fleeing remained an option.

The soft lights on the city walls faded behind. A little startled, Nathyrra realised it had been some time since she had ventured into the shadows like this, into the unbroken darkness. She prowled with both hands on her dagger hilts, listening to the barely-there sounds of the scouts, and the soughing of the air between the rock chimneys up ahead. Underfoot, the ground was dry and bare, the kind of solid stone that reflected noise too easily.

Her gaze skipped from the towering rock columns, past her cleric, to the lead scout, and back to Andaryn. He was moving with that precise, snake-quiet motion that all scouts learned. Each footstep coming down almost silently, even to drow ears, his head and chest tilted forward slightly, and his hands close to his weapons. His hair swayed across his back, and she recalled how it had looked the day he had arrived, all lank and matted with blood and sweat and grime. _Now it looks soft and rather inviting, and beautifully long. _

Nathyrra snarled and glared at the sweep of darkness above her. The high cavern walls were lowering, dropping down to a dark arch of stone that she knew led through to smaller, snaking caves. _Stop noticing him. He's just a male and you've had plenty of them. With their clothes off, they're all too similar, and didn't you ride Jalraen into exhaustion only last night? _

She swore again under her breath and kept moving, flicking her attention down to her boots, and the stone beneath. She recalled Andaryn's words, and how afraid he had seemed, beneath all his scorn and defiance. _How do you fight something you cannot see? And why could he not see them? Were they cloaked, somehow, invisible, or were he and the rest of them just too afraid? _The darkness did strange things to even the most experienced scout, she knew, but she could not shake the lingering, cynical thought, that perhaps it had all been some fancy tale.

_Really? Those wounds? That starved, thin frame on him? That wild, hunted look in his eyes? _

Still, she had once been in a horribly similar position. True, she had not run from phantoms in the dark, but brutally real drow assassins, and she had been prepared to concoct any story to get inside Lith My'athar's gates. _Truly? _The thought was insidious and sly. _Really? Even when the Seer looked at you, and saw how badly you were hurt, you would have lied, even then?_

Even to herself, she barely knew the truth. Perhaps, had she needed to, but the Seer had taken away any need the moment she knelt, and held her when her knees nearly gave out. Nathyrra had said something, something apologetic, and the Seer had simply looked at her, and said, _"All will be well."_

That first day, and the others afterward, Nathyrra had been struck by the Seer's serene beauty. Hers was not the fierce splendor of a Matron Mother or assassin or priestess, but there was something exquisite about her pale, millpond eyes and tiny frame. She grew to believe in the Seer, and her words and her visions, but she never _understood_ her, not properly. _As a leader, perhaps, but not as a female. _A female who wore only robes, and was never openly armed, and never raised her voice, and never imperiously ordered males to her bedchamber.

"Matron Mother."

Her cleric's voice, pitched low in the darkness. Nathyrra shook herself out of unhelpful thoughts. "Yes?"

"Matron Mother, I said, we've found something."

There was a fraught note of tension in the other female's words. Nathyrra stepped past her, noticed how her scouts were staring down, how they were shifting. On the far left, Andaryn's eyes were flat and unreadable, his jaw tight. She saw a sword, and three daggers, and an arrow, sunk deep in the ground. And blood, too much blood, thick enough that the smell invaded her nose. Coating the stone and the steep walls beyond in thick gouts. "No bodies?"

"No." Andaryn shifted. His hand was tight around his sword hilt. "Do you wish to continue?"

She looked past him, to where the ground lifted sharply before plunging between a high canyon. She knew this trail well, knew that it was not dangerous, at least not in the manner of much of the Underdark. The beholder nest nearby had been cleared out years ago, and every time umber hulks dared come too near to the city, they were flushed. The ground was well-worn, wide enough for wagons, and should have been crossed by her missing patrol.

"Yes," she said. "Yes. We continue on."

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Valen ran the cloth down the outside curve of his breastplate again, observed the satisfying sheen on it. He trailed his fingertips around the collar, down over cold metal. Rizolvir had made it, at the Seer's command, in tribute for the furious, forceful way he had taken to his duties as protector of Lith My'athar. The armour fit perfectly, and surpassed anything he had worn as Grimash't's prisoner. Even the colour was curiously apt, though he had never asked the Seer why she had known to choose green.

_Because you like green_, he thought wryly. _Because it's always been one of your favourite colours. Because it's the colour of trees and life. _

He remembered trying to thank the Seer, and stammering through it, but she had only smiled and touched his arm, and told him she hoped it would be useful. There had been too many defeats after that, and too many drow killed, and then her prophecy, of the surfacer.

Who had fallen through the temple roof, along with the rush and roar of some magical portal, a kobold and Nathyrra. He propped his armour up against the wall and could not quite suppress a grin. Sharp and clear, he remembered how he had seen Jaiyan staggering up to her feet, bleary-eyed and confused. His mind had given him one order, to protect the Seer, and protect her now, so he had crashed into the small surfacer girl, taken her off her feet and pinned her to the pillar, and dug a knife against her throat.

_Had they ever talked about that? _

He did not think so. Maybe he should ask sometime. _Yes, since you probably smacked into her hard enough to bruise. _

She had proved stubborn, and recalcitrant, and he had found himself sometimes enjoying that. She had a temper, and she was small and pale with unremarkable, twisted-back brown hair. When he had finally gathered the courage to kiss her, her lips had been warm and slightly chapped and welcoming. He remembered, even now, even after Sigil, how she had tasted. _Of brandy and uncertainty and hope. _

A knock at the door jolted him out of his thoughts. "Yes?"

He was half expecting Imloth, come to shepherd him downstairs for sparring, but the Seer stepped over the threshold. "Are you busy, Valen?"

He motioned her in. "No, not at all."

He had barely seen her since the return from Sigil. He remembered her calling the portal, and the sudden surge of power. Had he ever seen her in anything but robes before this? He supposed she must have worn leathers and weapons, years ago, but he had still not quite recognized her. _Not when there was so much noise, and you could barely even recognize Jaiyan, and you didn't even know if it was really happening or not. _

He sat opposite her, and some of the tension drained from him when he saw her face, familiar and calm. "Where's Imloth?"

"Outside," she answered, smiling. "Sparring. With Jaiyan and Dakesh."

Something prickled in the region of his belly. "The mercenary?"

"Yes. Valen."

He ducked his head, almost guiltily. "Yes?"

"You are not jealous," she said.

"No. Well, a little." He sighed. "I don't know. I don't even know him."

"He is no threat," she said, softer. "Valen, you are loved." When he said nothing, she added, "She came for you, and you would have done the same for her."

"Yes," he answered, honestly. _You would have torn the fortress down to find her,_ he thought. _And taken the price for her pain out of Azraleth's hide. _Except he had been the one trapped, and chained, and _she_ had rescued _him_. "Seer, I…"

"You do not need to feel shamed." Before he could retort, she shook her head. "You are here, and you are breathing. Does it matter, in the end, who saved who?"

"No. No, but…Seer, he…" Valen gulped down a deep breath, and something seemed to give way, somewhere in his chest. "Seer, he _flogged _her. In front of me. Hard enough that her back was covered in blood. I heard her scream, and gods, do you know how long it took for her to cry?"

The Seer shook her head again, silently.

"Long enough that he ruined her shirt. She's so…" Another hitching breath, but the ache was still there, lodged behind his sternum and painful. "Seer, she's so small." That was not exactly what he meant, but he suspected she understood anyway. "I couldn't _do _anything."

"I know." She touched the back of his hand. "But you are here, now, and you are both safe." Her eyes lifted, searched his face again. "May I ask you something?"

He nodded. "Anything."

"Would you consider never again leaving Waterdeep, settling here, and staying safe?"

He smiled ruefully. "No. Of course not."

He imagined he would grow restless and bored after barely a month; knowing Jaiyan as he did, he figured she would be as impatient. There was much of the world to see, and he had begun to wonder if she might ever want to see Hilltop again, or seek out her village. "I understand," he said, heavily. "She's as likely to be hurt by some bandit's arrow. But…"

"I know," the Seer murmured. "I know it is not the same. It is not the same, to see someone you care deeply for, deliberately hurt in front of you."

There was an odd, hushed note in her voice. She could not be speaking of Imloth, as far as he was aware. "Who was it, for you?"

"My sister," she answered. "I was one of seven daughters, the youngest, in fact. The sixth of our mother's daughters…she and I were…friends." One side of her mouth curved up. "There are few words in our language to express friendship, but I believe we had some form of it. We trained together for some time, and we…helped each other survive."

Valen studied her downturned face. "May I ask what happened?"

"She was foolish enough to become involved in a plot that, ultimately, challenged our mother's position." A sad smile ghosted across the Seer's lips. "She and her allies were caught, and most were killed on sight. She, however, was our mother's blood, and still had the temerity to challenge her position and fail."

Valen remembered Imloth speaking of such things, of how the punishment doled out was invariably for the failure, rather than the act itself. _What was it Imloth told you about? How he'd failed to fall in the arena, and the drow he had fended off had been executed that very day? And how once a conspiring sister had tried to poison him, and upon his survival, had been flayed alive, and how Imloth had been made to see it? _"And you saw it happen," he said quietly.

"Yes. All of us, the six remaining daughters, and her sons. She was tortured first, hot irons, and then our mother had her placed upon the rack until she died." The Seer's head lifted defiantly, her pale eyes too bright. "An example to us all."

"I'm sorry," Valen said, but it sounded hollow, ineffectual.

"It was a long time ago." Her smile returned. "Valen, I understand how you hurt, but do not dwell long upon it."

"But, Seer…"

"I know. You thought it would happen again."

Kyreia's name floated between them, tenuously. He recalled telling the Seer of how she had died, and how the words had wrenched from his throat in between dry, gasping sobs. He had been in Lith My'athar for some months, and, very slowly, had spoken of Sigil and Grimash't, and what he remembered of the Blood Wars. It had been a curiously uneventful day; he had run his recruits through sword drill, and then turned them over to Imloth for archery. The guards at the gates and the towers had reported nothing moving in the darkness. And he had sat in the Seer's chambers, his whole frame shaking, while she asked him, _"Who was she?"_

"Yes," he muttered eventually. "Yes, I…I started losing…I didn't know what was real. So when you all came into the cell, I didn't think…"

"I understand." Her voice stayed gentle, not censuring. "It must have been terrible. Valen?"

He looked up, met her unwavering gaze. "Yes?"

"You mean a lot to me. I will not have you suffer like that anywhere, Sigil or otherwise, and I quite frankly do not care how embarrassing it may have been to have been rescued by drow and a kobold."

Heat flooded his face and neck, and he scowled. "Seer, I…" He gave up, shrugged, and laughed. "Thank you."

"You are most welcome." She leaned forward, pressed the back of his hand again. "Now, I do believe you are late for sparring?"

Still smiling, he excused himself, and hurried downstairs. He found a quarterstaff in the armoury, along with a wooden practice sword. Even before he pushed the yard door open, he heard the familiar sound of wood and metal crossing. Outside, amid the early afternoon sunlight, he paused, and observed.

He noticed Jaiyan first, standing to one side, arms folded and an eyebrow raised critically. Her brown hair was delightfully unkempt, teasing free of its ties. She balanced her own training weapon across her shoulders, and he could see sweat speckling her temples and forehead. Across from her, Dakesh and Imloth circled each other. The drow dived in first, moving with that liquid grace that Valen knew hid surprising strength. He had seen this maneuver before, and smiled when the drow rolled under the mercenary's sword, flicked his own weapon around.

But before it hit the mercenary's leg, he melted away, sword flicking up and meeting Imloth's. The drow grinned and backed up. Snagged the mercenary's sword and wrenched, hard. Dakesh smirked and bulled forward, slammed his pommel against the drow's blade, followed up with an elbow to the chest. Valen stayed still long enough to watch Imloth recover his footing before stepping forward.

Jaiyan turned, smiled. She was next to him in an instant, then leaning up on her toes to kiss his cheek. "I was just about to send out a search party. Will you be joining us?"

He looked down into her clear blue eyes and resisted the urge to gather her tightly against him. Instead, he touched the side of her face, and said, "Yes. I will."

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High walls of black stone rose on either side of the narrow path. The ground was thick with loose rocks and gravel, and every time Nathyrra looked up, her vision was half-blocked by protruding spars. The remainder of the day had been spent carefully moving through stone corridors, until the high cavern roof overhead had opened up. Faint, barely-there scuffs in the dust had pointed them down a narrower tunnel, until the folded stone pressed in close on both sides, and she had begun to wonder why the missing patrol would have come down here, into a place that left so little options for running.

_Because they were chased?_

Her cleric walked ahead of her, with Andaryn even further forward, and two scouts behind. The skin between her shoulders was taut. Part of her hoped that they had followed the wrong trail, that her patrol was hunkered down somewhere far away and safe, and about to begin the trek back to the city.

_They're dead,_ some cynical thought whispered. _They're dead, and you're going to find what's left of them, and you know it. _

Above her, something scraped against the stone. Nathyrra froze, peered upward. Nothing stirred against the unbroken blackness, and she tried to quiet her jangled nerves. _Nothing is up there. Nothing. The stone's too steep. Nothing's up there. _She was hearing loose rocks shifting and falling, nothing more.

The ravine twisted sharply up ahead, and her lead scout held up a hand for a halt. They stopped in practiced silence, and he ordered two other scouts to flank them while they rested and ate. Dried rothe meat rations were passed around, along with a waterskin. They spoke little, and checked weapons, and stood with their eyes trained on the encroaching darkness.

Nathyrra slipped past the cleric, between two more scouts, and caught Andaryn's arm. The look he turned on her was terse and narrow-eyed. "Mistress?"

She motioned him closer, and murmured back, "Do you recognize this place?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I hate to appear lax, but I don't think I took map readings while I fled."

"Very amusing. Do you recognize anything?"

"The ravine itself seems similar…but, Mistress, you know as well as I…there are thousands of such ravines in the Underdark."

He was correct, but that did nothing to banish the unease that bit at her. _Was he being deliberately obtuse? Why? What would he gain by saying nothing and letting them blunder into some ambush? Nothing, since he would be lost along with them. _

Nathyrra gritted her teeth and nodded. The scout leader gestured them up and together, and they moved off, as wordlessly. This time, she stayed in place, between Andaryn and her cleric, and watched him as he prowled forward. Despite the loose-limbed way he moved, his shoulders were rigid, and whenever his head turned far enough towards her, she could see that his eyes were flickering.

_He's afraid_. She glanced up at the towering rock walls again, saw nothing. _Of what? What's here?_

The path knifed to the left again, and the ravine slanted wider. The air moved against her face, and she heard the far-off rumble of a waterfall. The space above them felt emptier now; she knew without looking that it would be free of spiraling columns, clear until the curve of the cavern roof. She had been through here more than once, knew it was far from any trade routes, and was certainly not part of any reconnoitering task her patrols were ever given. The trail wandered away from the city too quickly, and the terrain was treacherous, hemmed in from all sides and, back when the Valsharess had lived, just asking to be full of enemy soldiers.

Loose gravel showered down from somewhere above, and she gripped at a dagger hilt. The air did not change, did not push harder against her, but there was the smell of something odd, something fetid. _Could be old water_, she thought. _Old water in pools without a current to move it. Or moss, damp and growing too thick. _

Up ahead, the scout paused. She saw his head turn, his profile sharp as he squinted up the rock face. He motioned them on, his gaze returning to the ravine ahead. Following, Nathyrra found her gaze lingering on the bright sweep of Andaryn's hair. She had always liked her males with hair nearly as long as hers, thick and soft and there to touch and grasp and hold. Jalraen's hair was thick enough, but ended at his collarbones, and more than once, she had considered bullying him into growing it.

_Stop it,_ she thought. _You're thinking of conquests when you should be thinking of terrain and a possible ambush. _

She made herself look down at the blank rock between her feet. Slightly uneven, dry, and dusty. There was another scrape of stone on stone, and she tightened her fingers around her dagger hilt. She remembered exchanging tales with Imloth, one evening while they inspected the troops along the city walls. He had told her of the time he had panicked while accompanying a scouting party; how the shadows had seemed too deep and full of echoes thrown off the river that churned nearby. How he had unslung his bow, whirled around, and shot a stone column before realizing his mistake. She had laughed, not unkindly, and explained that she had once done almost the same, and launched at shapes that were not quite there, were merely shadows against the darkness. They had both been young, they supposed, and the silent cold of the Underdark had unsettled them.

The lead scout held his hand up again, ducked his head, and motioned for Nathyrra to move forward. She brushed past Andaryn, noticed that his shoulders were coiled with tension. Following the lead scout's gaze, her stomach lurched. She saw the armour first, piled against the rocks, and blood-splashed. Weapons beyond, left as if abandoned, swords half out of scabbards, arrows lying flat, bows unstrung. Circling, smudged footprints in the dust. More blood on the rocks behind. _And nothing else_, she thought savagely. _Where the hells are they? Dead, yes, but where the hells are the bodies?_

She heard the others milling behind her, and then someone's hand, grasping her wrist. She looked up, and into Andaryn's crimson eyes. "What?"

For a long moment, he did nothing but stare at her. The skin around his eyes and mouth looked almost grey. The fingers wrapped around her wrist were trembling faintly. "Do you hear that, Mistress?"

Somewhere nearby, her scout leader swore. She tipped her head back, listened. She heard the slight sound of leather creaking, and someone shuffling their feet. The air, soughing above that. There was that smell again, thick and rank and filling her mouth. She was about to snarl at him that he was needlessly bothering her when she heard it.

Soft and slow and scraping. Rhythmic, and not anything like the sound stone might make, toppling down a cliff face. Not gravel, scattering down onto flat rock. _This is different_, she thought. _This is barely there, quieter even than you've been. _She tipped her head the other way, but could not tell if the noise was left or right, only that it was above her, and approaching, slithering down the ravine walls. Her hand dropped to her belt, loosening her dagger in its sheath.

"Mistress?" Andaryn stepped even closer, so that his mouth was very close to her ear. "Do you hear that?"

"Yes." She could feel his breathing against her face, harsh and ragged. "What does it mean?"

"They're here," he said, very quiet, his head turned away from the others. He had not let go of her wrist, and his fingers tightened. "They're coming for us."


	27. Chapter 27

_**Chapter Twenty-Seven – Running**_

Nathyrra stared upwards. She could hear her cleric calling some spell, and the rattle and snap of bows being strung and pulled taut. The scouts did not shout out, or call for orders, only turned to flank her, coiled and waiting. Another raking look showed her the rock walls, blank and uninviting. _How do you fight what you cannot see?_

Andaryn's hand was still locked around her wrist. She tugged him closer, and murmured, "What do we do?"

"Run," he snapped.

The air above her was thick with the scratching sounds of tumbling stones. _Run, and they'll be right behind us. _

"Run," he said again. He yanked sharply at her arm. "Now, Nathyrra!"

White light cracked out from the cleric's hands, and the ravine rang. A volley of arrows whipped up after, biting against stone, dropping back down. Some seemed to thud against the empty air before falling. Another spell roared up, hot and fierce.

Andaryn wrenched at her arm again. "Now. Now, or I am leaving you here."

Part of her balked at such treatment, and she jerked away from him. His gaze flicked past her shoulder, and his eyes widened. "Nathyrra!"

Seven arrows launched up, snicking against the stone. Most glanced away and plummeted back down. Somewhere behind her, a scout screamed. She heard the wet, gasping sound of him trying to breathe and guessed that his throat had been cut. _Move, now, _she thought. _Get them out of here. _

Andaryn ploughed into her, shoving her back three paces. She almost snarled at him, but the air overhead was suddenly full of something rushing and cold. He crashed into her shoulder again, kicking her ankles out and toppling her. Her hand flew instinctively up, her dagger arcing towards his neck. He reacted as fast, caught her forearm. Above, the darkness seemed to buckle and shift, and another scout shrieked.

"I'm trying to save you, Mistress," he breathed. "Get the dagger away from my throat."

She glared up into his red eyes. She needed to tip him off her, but the air was thick with whistling, shadowy movement. _Kick him away, and leave yourself entirely uncovered. _Another thought rose up, slightly sly, that keeping him close might mean keeping him alive. Some spell sizzled past nearby, impacting against nothing and showering sparks. Another scream, this one frantic. Andaryn had one knee dug against her thigh, and his elbow was lodged in her stomach. Nathyrra lowered her hand, and grated, "What do we do?"

He rolled off her, stayed crouching. Motioned her up behind him, kept his hand vised over her wrist. The ravine flared white as a spell seared past, leaving charcoal smudged along the stone. Nathyrra risked a quick look back, and saw one of her scouts, flailing madly with his sword. The blade whined through empty air, and his eyes were wide and white-ringed. As if something pushed against him, he lost his footing. His shoulders wrenched back, and his throat opened.

"Tell them," Andaryn hissed into her ear. "Now."

She lifted her hand, signed desperately to them. Most of them were not looking at her; they were staring instead at the darkness, at the small bits of gravel that slid down the ravine walls. She tried again, and was about to simply shout out the command to run when _something_ lifted a scout clear off his feet. Watching, Nathyrra saw his skin burst, saw the blood run. Distantly, she was aware of Andaryn, pulling at her arm, trying to motion to the others to bolt.

She signed a third time, and decided that warning the city was far more important than getting back with most scouts accounted for. She pushed up to her feet, felt Andaryn steady her when she almost stumbled. Something whirled past behind her, and Andaryn mouthed a warning. She launched forward, and bit down on a scream when pain erupted along her shoulders. Something – talons maybe, something painful, something sharp and not there – ripped through her leathers. Blood soaked through, hot and thick.

"Come on." Andaryn yanked her forward, propped her up. "Can you run?"

She twisted away from him. "Yes."

She had to bolt for the city, she knew, and let the gods help whoever remained behind. _But how can you leave them to die? You brought them here. Save them. _

She tried to think, tried to order cluttered thoughts. But all she could hear was screaming, and feet pounding against stone, and fearful shouts, and swords biting against the ravine wall. She twisted around again, saw her cleric clawing past the fallen shapes of two scouts. Blood threaded through her hair. Behind her, another scout collapsed, hands clasped over a huge gash across his stomach.

"Come on!" Ignoring Andaryn, she reached out. "Come on, quickly!"

The cleric stumbled, flailed wildly for her hand. Caught her, and let Nathyrra heave her over another dead scout. Behind, three more scouts ran forward, swords unsheathed, and all of them bleeding.

"A spell," Andaryn snapped. "Push them back. Give us room to run."

The cleric snarled out an incantation, and some shimmering wall sprang up. Nathyrra peered through, swore. If she squinted, she _thought_ she saw something moving, rippling through the air. _A trick of the eye, shadows moving, could be nothing. _But something had slain her scouts, something that attacked and cut with claws they could not see.

"Now," Andaryn whispered into her ear. "Now, Mistress, unless you wish to stay?"

She let him haul her away. Her cleric followed, feet slamming against the stone, with the remaining scouts not far behind. They were running too loudly, and every trained instinct in her screamed for her to stop, back up and take a moment to think. _Slow it down, sheathe swords. Bolting blind only leads to more trouble. No time. Can't stop. Keep going_. But she could hear every footfall, every jangle of buckles and weapons, and she wondered if they were going to rouse every beholder and duergar within half a league. She could feel the slick, hot spread of blood across her shoulders. Running with Andaryn beside her, she recalled what he had said. If she bled, and left a trail, the things in the ravine would follow all the faster. _Maybe even intercept you before you make it back to Lith My'athar. And incidentally, what are you going to do when you get back there? _

She shoved aside such thoughts and picked up the pace. Andaryn matched her, moving with easy, athletic grace. The ravine fell away, along with the insistent, fetid smell in the air. The cavern roof closed in overhead, and the dry, dusty air of the lower tunnels hit her. It had been some time since she had fled any battlefield in this manner, and she could feel the strain beginning in the backs of her thighs. _That was a battlefield? That was an ambush!_

She chanced a quick look behind them, counted her cleric, and three scouts, and nothing but darkness. _That's what you thought last time. _She shook herself, pressed on faster. Every muscle in her legs was burning, but Andaryn was not slowing, and she was damned if she was going to start flagging first. Her shoulders were throbbing, and every pace pulled her blood-damp leathers away from her skin. _You're not dead. You can still run. Run. _

The tunnels swung around ahead, tipping down a slight slope. Still running, Andaryn reached out, touched her elbow. "Mistress," he said, between steps. "We should stop."

She shot him a fierce look. "No."

"Mistress." His grip tightened on her arm. "You're bleeding too freely. We need to stop."

He was right, but she still bristled. She wanted to keep going, keep bolting until she passed through the gates and into the sanctuary of Lith My'athar. _No sanctuary_, she thought venomously, _if you bring those things after you. _

She guided them down the tunnel, and then up, darting over high rock shelves, to a small, scooped-out cave she knew. She had once laid more than one ambush from this cave, sending soldiers and wizards out into the darkness to wait for the Valsharess' troops. One had been disastrous, and had culminated in a short, brutal skirmish that few of her drow had survived.

Once under the low arch, she ordered a scout to stand guard. The other two dropped to their knees, quickly examining their wounds.

"Matron Mother."

Nathyrra turned, saw her cleric watching her through narrowed eyes. She was expecting harsh questions, but the cleric only gestured at her shoulders, and said, "Matron Mother, you are bleeding. May I..?"

Wordlessly, Nathyrra nodded. Waited while the cleric stepped up behind her, trailed her fingertips across the torn leather. "These are deep," the cleric remarked. "When we return, you must rest. You've lost a lot of blood."

The cleric's touch retreated, replaced by the warm, burrowing feeling of the healing spell as it washed over her. A second surge followed, and Nathyrra nodded briskly. "Help the scouts."

While the cleric hurried away, Nathyrra noticed Andaryn, standing poised by the cave mouth. His breathing had steadied, but she could see the pulse at his neck, and the line of his jaw was a little too stiff. "Are you hurt?"

He shook his head. "You need to clean the blood off your leathers."

"What?"

He scowled. "The blood, Mistress. It's all down your back and your legs. Clean it."

A venomous retort welled up, but she shoved it back, and nodded. She swung her pack off, found a waterskin and a cloth usually pressed into service to help polish her daggers. It was still clean, so she soaked it and scrubbed away the blood that had dripped down one side and onto her leg.

"Give it to me." Without waiting for a reply, Andaryn snatched the cloth from her. "Turn around."

She obeyed, grudgingly, and felt that familiar, misgiving twinge when he stepped up behind her. Like most drow, she suspected, she _hated_ having someone – anyone, even the Seer, even Imloth or the tiefling – standing directly behind her. Even the fastest assassin might not be able to move swiftly enough to escape that kind of attack, and he was _very_ close, his breath against the back of her neck.

Andaryn wrung the cloth out again, swept it across her shoulders. He moved down, mopping it along the length of her spine. She heard him kneel, and then felt the pressure of his hand against the back of her thigh while he rubbed the cloth down the inside of her knee.

"Mistress, I am rather impressed that you managed to run at all." He moved to her other leg, paused again to pour more water onto the cloth. He swiped around both ankles, and sighed. "You won't drip all over the floor now, but you are still rather soaked."

"Then we move on, and fast." She turned, noticed how red the cloth in his hand was. "I neglected to bring spare leathers, and I do not fancy my chances running naked."

Andaryn smirked up at her. "Mistress, you are a Matron Mother. Surely any enemy would be blinded by your beauty."

She stepped around him, and considered kicking him. "Get off your knees, male. I need you running, not praying."

He snorted, but said nothing. She glanced to the cleric, saw that she stood with her hands fanned over the third scout, eyes closed. The spell swelled, funneling white and warm from her hands, and the scout shivered.

"Done, Matron Mother," the cleric said. "Should we continue?"

"Yes." Nathyrra licked at dry lips, and added, "Thank you, Erelaer."

The cleric inclined her head. "As you will, Matron Mother."

At the cave entrance, Nathyrra paused, listened. She heard nothing, no sliding of loose stone. Even the air was still, unmoving against her face. Motioning the others to follow, she slipped out into the shadows beyond, stopped again. Nothing stirred, but she could not quite quell the way her heartbeat suddenly lurched. But there was no other option save sitting and waiting for their trail to be followed, so she signed again, and led them back into the darkness.

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Jaiyan surfaced from odd, troubling dreams. Her immediate impulse was to dive under the covers and close her eyes until she felt better, but the room was awash with moonlight, and besides, there was a tiefling in the way. Valen was sprawled beside her, half under her, and she did not want to disturb him. She remembered drifting into sleep with her back against his chest, his arm around her waist, and she wondered how yet again she had managed to wake up tangled across him like this.

_Well, it's not like he seems to mind. _Very gently, she eased his arm away from her shoulder and back around her middle. He sighed wordlessly into her neck, and his tail tightened around her leg. She stifled a giggle and sank back against the pillow.

She had dreamed of Sigil, and the fortress again, and of how the whip had felt against her skin. How Azraleth had smiled, and how his claws had clasped her, sharp under her chin. _How Valen had looked when she had been dragged out, how he had tugged at his chains and screamed. _

She exhaled slowly. The dreams would stay for too long, she knew. That time she had first killed goblins had haunted her, much to Xanos' disgust, and she was never quite sure why. They had been little threat, and had died easily and quickly; still, she remembered them in her sleep for a long while after. The same was true after she first killed a man. _And not just one_, she thought sourly. Drogan had told her, more than once, how it would be different, how no matter what she thought, driving a sword into an orc was not the same as driving a sword into a man. She had scoffed, and not wanted to believe him, and had ended up throwing up her lunch next to the bodies of the three bandits she killed.

_"I didn't think," she said, afterwards, back in the warmth of Drogan's study. "I thought…I don't know. I've killed orcs and bugbears that were bigger."_

_"It's not the same, lass." Drogan sighed. "I killed goblins and orcs long before I ever cut the throat of another dwarf. It's different, it stays more. You'll dream it more, I'd wager."_

But these were dreams of Azraleth alive, and she should not be troubled by them, surely? _But no one tortured you before, _she thought. _No one chained the man you love to a wall before. _

She turned over again, dislodging Valen's arm, and hearing another wordless murmur in response. He never talked properly in his sleep – that she noticed, at least – but he tended to sigh a lot. _Not that you have much to compare him to. _Corwyl had muttered to himself a few times, waking her, but had just flushed and shrugged and not really mentioned it. _But that was different…you were younger then, and hadn't even been to Hilltop. _

She sat up halfway, squinted into the moonlight. The curtains hung partway open, and she could see glowing lamplight, and the edges of high roofs. Next to her, Valen snuffled against her shoulder, coughed, and opened his eyes.

Jaiyan laughed. "Valen?"

"Mmm." He lifted his head, nuzzled the side of her neck. "Did you say something?"

She combed a hand through his unbound hair. "No. I moved, and I think I woke you. Sorry."

"Don't be." He smiled sleepily. "Why so pensive, my love?"

"I was dreaming."

"Sigil?"

"Yes." She nestled closer to him. "Is that strange?"

"No. I dream of it as well." He kissed the side of her neck. "Sometimes when I dream of it, and it seems so terribly real."

"I know what you mean." In the dream, she had tasted the cold air of her cell again, felt the heavy weight of the shackles around her wrists. Heard the door slamming closed, and the sound of the whip, uncurling. She shifted over, so she could trail her hand along his collarbone. "How do you manage to sleep, with me lying all over you?"

"What?"

"Well, somehow I always manage to end up all over you." She grinned, a little sheepishly. "I've never…I've not really slept with someone else. This often. Like this."

He laughed. "You're sweet when you're trying to be innocent."

Heat rushed up her neck. "I meant it," she protested. "Did you?"

"What? Sleep often with other people?" Over her squeal of objection, he said, "Beloved, I haven't either. When I was under Grimash't's care, Kyreia could never stay. We never _slept_ together. Not like this."

She studied his face, saw how his eyes flicked away from her. _They nearly always do_, she thought, _when he speaks of such things._ "And I suppose your marilith didn't have an actual bed handy?"

Valen growled. "Will you _ever_ forget that?"

"Absolutely not." She plucked idly at the end of one of his horns. "Valen?"

"Hmm?"

"Did it ever bother you that…I wasn't a virgin?"

He laughed again. "So every time you can't sleep, you imagine awkward questions for me? You're a strange woman, my love. Why would it bother me?"

"I don't know." She ran her fingers down his horn, to where it met his skull, and the thick, disheveled mess of red hair. "I suppose I read one too many awful ballads."

"No, it never bothered me." He grinned. "Though I did once wonder if you had a husband or a betrothed waiting for you up in Waterdeep."

"You _what?_"

He shrugged. "It was…oh, before Zorvak'mur. I was thinking about you, and I wondered that."

"And?"

"And I came to the conclusion that you didn't. Couldn't."

"Couldn't?" She rolled all the way over, so that she faced him directly. "What do you mean, couldn't?"

"Well, I couldn't imagine the man brave enough…"

Jaiyan laughed, and thumped his shoulder gently. "So it had to be a tiefling brave enough?"

"Of course."

"So…you were thinking about me before Zorvak'mur?"

Valen groaned. "Impossible woman. Go back to sleep."

She traced a hand down his chest, felt him shudder. She slid her leg up over one of his, and curled herself closer. She was about to pull his head down when he grimaced and said, "Beloved, can you move?"

She pouted up at him. "You don't like me this close to you?"

"It has nothing to do with that, I assure you. You're lying right on my tail."

Jaiyan giggled, and found that his perturbed expression did not help at all. She shifted away from him, felt his tail slip away from her leg and settle around her waist. "But…don't I end up lying on it a lot?"

"Well, yes, but…" He frowned, and added, "It's different. You've got your whole weight on it."

She buried her head against his shoulder and laughed. "You're saying I'm heavy?"

"I'm not saying that at all, I'm just…" He sighed. "You're mocking me."

"Yes. It's just…" She gulped down a deep breath, kept her face straight. "I'm sorry."

"No, you're not."

She turned and pulled his arm around her waist again, felt his chest cleave against the curve of her spine. He tugged her back against him, settled the underside of his jaw against the top of her head.

"You're too tall."

He laughed. "You'll complain about anything."

"Mmm." She traced over his knuckles, felt the raised lines of old scars. "Do you know how much I worried?"

"In Sigil?" His lips brushed the crown of her head. "Yes."

"I wanted to find you faster. I tried…the corridors, though, they were so confusing."

"Sshh. It's over." He stroked down her side to her hip. "I know you did. You did better than me…at least you got out of your cell."

"I kept thinking…" She drew in a ragged breath. "I kept thinking how much it hurt, and how much I didn't want to go through it again. But then I wondered if it was the only way to get to see you again, so…"

"Stop." Valen caught her hand, squeezed. "I don't want to hear that."

"Valen…"

"I want to hear that you would've escaped that cell anyway. You being safe and well is far more important."

Jaiyan tried for a laugh, and it came out choked. She reached back, clasped a hand over his hip. "Sorry."

"Don't be. Are you very awake?"

"Yes. Why?"

Valen turned over, pinning her beneath him. "Oh, I have a few ideas."

She was face-down against the pillow, deliciously trapped under his warm, comforting weight. "Oh?" She rolled her hips up against his, heard his sharp intake of breath. "And what exactly are they?"

He leaned down, kissed her shoulder. "You'll see."

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The stone had changed, was rougher, turned uneven by the gods knew how many years of footsteps. Nathyrra pushed on, ignored the hot, needling ache in her legs. Her leathers were half-dry and stiff, crackling against her skin with every movement. She tasted sweat on her lips. The three scouts slogged along behind her, Andaryn and Erelaer on her other side.

They were close to the city, she knew, and so far the darkness behind remained undisturbed. She had paused once to look back, and Andaryn had chivvied her along, forcibly grasping her shoulders and pulling, ignoring her snarled protests. But simply running left her mind too open to perilous thoughts; she knew too well how to navigate the terrain, how to sprint across smooth stone and anticipate the next slope. Her cleric's spells had banished the pain her shoulders, and with little else to settle on, her thoughts ran wild.

_How to explain this? To Erelaer, to any of the council? What if we're followed? How do you seal off a city to an attack by things that move like that, unseen? _

_And if they blame Andaryn, what then?_

Nathyrra swore under her breath and shook her head. Such worries could only be addressed once the gates of Lith My'athar were safely closed. She glanced up, saw how the cavern overhead was curving up, opening out. Ahead, the open plain beckoned, and beyond that, sanctuary. _Was this how Andaryn felt, bolting through the darkness, until he saw the lights at the guard towers?_

She had no time to speculate. Picking up the pace, she hurtled between the stone chimneys, uncaring of the noise. She saw the torches first, floating amid the darkness. Another push took them across the flat stretch of stone, and near enough that she could hear the sentries calling out, could hear running footsteps. What must they be thinking, she wondered? _They'll be expecting a screaming horde of beholders after us, or maybe demons, or some drow contingent. _

Chains yanked taut, and the gates swung slowly inwards. Nathyrra skidded through first, Andaryn on her heels. She looked back quickly, saw nothing that suggested anything untoward. _Just the stone, and the darkness, and the dryness. _Still, her shoulders were prickling horribly, and she motioned the others in.

"Stop," she snapped at the guards. "There's…" They were staring at her, eyes wide and uncertain. "Stay on the walls. If _anything_ changes, I need to know. Do you understand?"

She received a murmur of assent, and more shuffling. Not that she could entirely blame them; her leathers must reek of blood and dirt, and the others were in little better shape, and far fewer than when they had left. She marched away, gesturing the others after her. "Erelaer," she said, quietly. "Call the council. Tell them I need them to be ready."

"Where will you be?"

"I need…give me some time."

"Matron Mother, whatever attacked us may be close behind."

"I know." Nathyrra swiped loose hair out of her face. "A little time."

Erelaer nodded slowly. "Very well."

She ordered the three scouts away with Erelaer, paused long enough to unlatch her right hand from her dagger hilt. "Andaryn."

"Mistress?" His voice was low, rough.

"Come with me." Without waiting, she spun on her heel. Heading for the temple, she tried to calm her thundering heartbeat, tried to push aside the insistent knot of apprehension that had settled somewhere inside her. Flesh and blood enemies, even those in the garb of assassins, well, they could be stopped, could be pinned down and killed. _All you need to be is faster_. These things launched out of nothing and attacked at whim, and part of her was regretting ever letting Andaryn live.

_But even if you had killed him, even if you had let him die of his wounds, who's to say those things would have stayed away? _

_Maybe, but you might as well have walked out into the caverns and announced your intention to be ambushed. _

Nathyrra stalked through the temple doors, snapped out an order for the clerics to leave the main chamber. The basalt underfoot was polished, swimming with the light from the lamps that hung near the altar. Beyond, the elegant, black statue of Eilistraee waited, blank-eyed and beautiful. Many times, she had observed the Seer in prayer, crouched before the statue, eyes closed, and waiting for some answer. _Which she always seemed to get_, she thought bitterly.

Two spiraling lines of incense still drifted past the statue. Nathyrra stared up, and realised she had no clue where to begin. She had never held any love for Lolth, and while she had once pledged loyalty to Eilistraee, she had never been good at turning desperation and requests into prayers. _Please_, she thought. _Just…please. _

"Mistress?" Andaryn stepped up beside her, held one hand out as if he might touch her. "Nathyrra…?"

"Did you know?"

"No," he answered, thickly. "No. I didn't know. And I hoped…I don't know what I hoped."

She turned her head, looked at him. "Will they follow?"

"I don't know."

"Will you tell me everything else?"

"Mistress?"

"About why exactly the Valsharess sent you. About how she meant Saerith to complete your mission. How she was meant to come to some kind of truce with those things."

"Not a truce," he said, softly. "An agreement."

"Will you tell me?"

"Yes," he answered. His gaze flicked up, crimson and hard. "Whatever you are planning to do, I imagine you'd best hurry."

"You _imagine?_" She switched her attention to the statue again, tried to will the tension in her shoulders to drain away. _Please,_ she thought again. _Please. We need you. Need help. We can't do this, not alone. Not like this. _"Please…"

The statue's eyes remained vacant. Had they ever been anything else for the Seer? She was not sure. She breathed in deeply, and the incense rolled down her throat. _We need help,_ she thought. _Need someone's help. The city…I can't lose the city. We fought too hard for it…can't lose it now, not to this. _

Andaryn shifted beside her. "What are you doing?"

_Trying to pray and failing. _"Nothing useful," she said, aware of her jarring, harsh tone. Every time she had watched the Seer pray, it had been serene and soft and patient. But Nathyrra knew weapons and tactics, darkness and how to swiftly kill an opponent, not the strung-out silence of the temple. _And being here is not helping, not when you should be outside, and trying to plan. _

And besides, her council was going to want some kind of explanation. _And what exactly are you going to tell them? _She had no idea, and that startled her. _Think of something, anything. Lie to them. Anything. _

"Mistress." Andaryn touched her shoulder. "There is little time."

She nodded, whirled away from him. Listened to the sharp, snapping sound of her own heels against the stone floor as she strode away. This was her city, and she would not – _could_ not – let it fall prey to something that drifted in from the shadows, whatever they might be. _Everything dies_, she thought fiercely. _Everything can be taken down. Everything can be killed. _

She strode out through the doors again. The Seer and Imloth had planned to stay in the surfacer city, Waterdeep. Would they still be there? She did not know, but she knew the way to Undermountain, and to the trapdoor that led up into the surfacer tavern. _Would it be worth it? Send someone up, to find out? What if they're not there? _She recalled Imloth's decision to venture up, and plead admittance to the tavern, and how the surfacers had treated him. They had beaten him and nearly broken his jaw and left him bleeding, and she had wondered how it was he had restrained himself from slaughtering most of them.

"Mistress?" Andaryn's voice again, and threaded through with apprehension. "Are you ready?"

"Yes." Her mouth still tasted of the incense, and she remembered the Seer again, how she had prayed, and believed, and trusted. Waterdeep and Undermountain would have to wait, she knew. For now, she had no option but to deal with her councilors, and see to the guards at the walls, and simply hope. "Yes," she said, again. "I am ready."


	28. Chapter 28

_Apologies for the delay...this week has been much taken up by university admissions tests/forms. As always, a huge thank-you to everyone who's following the story, and reviews are always welcomed. _

_**Chapter Twenty-Eight – Visions**_

Jaiyan ran the brush across the horse's shoulder, smiled when the old gelding snorted and shook his mane out. He was an ornery, ungrateful creature, she knew, and Mhaere kept him mostly out of sentiment, but at least he had not tried to gnaw at her shoulder yet. She patted him cautiously before backing away, keeping her eyes on his lowered head. She had never entirely trusted him, not since he had once casually kicked her after she turned her back on him.

She idled in the other stalls, slowly grooming the three mercenaries' horses currently sharing the stables. One of them lipped at her collar, and she gently pushed his head away. She liked horses, enjoyed the simplicity of keeping them fed and watered and gleaming.

"They're so tall."

She turned, grinned at Imloth where he leaned against the stable door. "Wouldn't be much good if they weren't."

He approached, let the horse she was rubbing down nudge his outstretched hand. "They smell strange." He traced his fingers across the horse's nose, then up to its ears, pausing long enough to scratch gently. "I like them, though. Durnan keeps threatening to teach me to ride."

"You should. You'd probably be good at it. And it makes long journeys that bit quicker."

"True enough." Imloth trailed his hand across the horse's coat, his skin very dark against the rough chestnut hair. "You know how to ride?"

"My father taught me," she answered. "Probably the only useful thing he ever did." She noticed Imloth's frown, and before he could speak, she added, "There was a big fat old carthorse at the blacksmith's. Monster of a horse, but gentle as a lamb once you got up on him. I learned on him, and then on the couple of post-horses the inn kept. My family never owned horses, though."

"What did they do?"

"They were farmers. Still are, I suppose."

Imloth swept the horse's mane back over the arch of his neck, smiled when the horse snorted. "You have not seen them since..?"

"Since I left."

He nodded, and did not press the matter further. Instead, he picked up the spare brush, helped her with the third horse's flanks and withers. Half-watching him, she noticed how slowly and steadily he swept the bristles across, how he often stopped to touch the horse's neck, or stroke its side.

"Imloth, in the Underdark, did you ride spiders?"

He laughed. "No. Lizards, sometimes."

"Lizards?"

He nodded, gave the horse a satisfied look. "Big, wall-climbing lizards." He passed the brush back. "Low to the ground, good in tunnels, and surprisingly good when roasted."

Jaiyan peered suspiciously at him. "Roasted."

"When you grow up in the Underdark, anything tastes good." He grinned. "Did you want to spar? I left Valen out there with Dakesh, and I think it's about time to go and see if they're both still alive."

"You're a cynic." She chuckled anyway, and trailed him out into the yard. The sharp, snapping sounds of meeting wood reached her first, then footsteps, quick and sure against the ground. She looked up in time to see Valen slamming one elbow against Dakesh's shoulder, driving him back. His quarterstaff sliced in, taking the mercenary's feet out, and laying him flat.

"Fine," Dakesh growled. "You win."

Jaiyan folded her arms, cast a curious glance in Valen's direction. "Do I sense a bet that went wrong?"

Valen shrugged. "More a difference of opinion." He leaned down, hauled Dakesh back up. "Are you alright?"

"My dignity has more bruises than my back, I assure you." The mercenary tossed his practice sword across to Imloth. "Your drow friend can take over. I've had enough of a beating for one afternoon."

Jaiyan smirked and perched on the wall. Dakesh joined her, rolling his shoulders and peeling his sleeve back so he could examine the spread of a purple bruise down his forearm. His dark hair was disheveled, damp with sweat at his temples, and his pale complexion was spoiled by a faint flush across his cheekbones.

"Your friend doesn't go easy, does he?"

Jaiyan watched as Valen spun at Imloth, his whole frame lifting off the ground before crashing into the drow. "No. Never. I suppose it's just not his style."

Dakesh laughed. "Makes him useful in a fight, I suppose."

"It does." She glanced sidelong at him, noticed him wincing when he straightened against the wall. "_Are_ you hurt?"

"No."

She snorted, and was about to mutter something about being willfully obdurate, when she heard Imloth cry out. The smack of wood against leather followed. She looked up, saw the drow jerking away. Valen pursued, the quarterstaff whirling in his grasp and angling in at the drow's neck. Imloth darted back, viper-quick. His sword flew up and blocked the quarterstaff, held for a locked moment before Valen wrenched away.

"Give me some advice," Dakesh said slowly. "Your innkeeper friend. He's not letting me pay him."

"Really? That'd be a first."

"I'm serious," the mercenary growled. "Do you pay him?"

"Deekin plays, and Durnan gets some of that." She shrugged, did not take her eyes from Valen as he aimed three punishing blows at Imloth's chest. The drow met them all, half-coiling away so that his shoulder and the practice sword took the brunt. "If he wants coin, he'll let you know. Durnan's never been one to shy from telling anyone what he thinks." She shot Dakesh a wry look. "Why not just accept the charity and keep your gold?"

"Because I'm not the in the habit of ignorantly creating debts."

She grinned. "Maybe we have a bit in common, after all."

"What, apart from both falling foul of Sigil?"

There was something in his voice, some buried, sardonic bitterness. "What happened?"

"Long story. Old story." His mouth twisted. "Same story as the gods know how many in that city."

She wanted to pry, to ask more. _After all, hadn't he said to Azraleth that he was something like a slave? _Another quick look showed the mercenary looking down, slowly pulling his gloves off, and massaging the bruised, long fingers beneath.

Imloth's startled shout jarred her thoughts. "Valen!"

Without thinking, Jaiyan pushed off the wall. Three steps took her across the cobbles, closer to where Valen was poised over Imloth. The drow was half-crouched, cradling one arm against his chest. The quarterstaff whipped down again, and Imloth heaved himself away, stumbling against the opposite wall.

Jaiyan caught Valen's arm, felt rock-hard muscles through his shirt. "Valen?"

His whole frame shook with each ragged breath. His hands dropped open, and the quarterstaff fell. He turned, slowly, and something constricted in Jaiyan's chest when she saw that his eyes were still blue, still clear, still _Valen_. _Why wouldn't they be? You got rid of his taint. Wished it away with his True Name. _

"Valen?" Very gently, she reached up and touched his face, found that his skin was clammy. "Valen, it's me. We're in Waterdeep. You're alright."

His lips trembled. "Imloth..?"

"I'm fine," the drow said, slightly strained.

"I…" Valen blinked again. "I hurt you."

"Of course you hurt me." He exhaled sharply. "No, you didn't break my arm. A poor result, given how hard you hit me."

"I'm sorry, I…" Valen shook his head. "I didn't mean to."

"It's alright." Imloth grinned, a little unsteadily. "Though you'll forgive me if I retire early. I'm getting too old to be milled under quite so thoroughly more than once in a day."

The drow scooped up the practice weapons, motioned Dakesh across the yard and into the inn after him. Left alone with Valen, Jaiyan took both of his hands in hers and led him across to the wall. "He's fine," she told him firmly. "He's going to hurt like the Nine Hells in the morning, but he's fine."

"I didn't see him," Valen said, entirely flat. "He was there, I know he was there, but…I didn't see him. Between one stroke and another, all I wanted to do was hurt him."

"Don't be dramatic." She leaned in, kissed him softly. "Can you honestly tell me in all the time you spent in Lith My'athar, you never once beat the absolute hells out of each other?"

"Well, no. I mean, of course we did, but…"

"But nothing. I heard the story of what happened the first time you two sparred." She lifted his hands, traced her mouth across his knuckles. "You both seem to forget you're a lot bigger than him."

"That's not…" He scowled. "That's not the point."

"Isn't it?"

"No." His eyes flicked up, searched her face. "Can you honestly tell me that you were not worried, just then? Did you not think you might see me as you did in Cania?"

She was tempted to deny it, to brush him off with some blithe joke. _But this is Valen, and you've never been less than honest with him, so why start now?_ "Of course I was worried, idiot. For about half an instant, before I got in front of you, and saw that you _weren't_."

His fingers found her collar, slipped inside, touched the faded scars at her throat. "Jaiyan…"

"No," she said, resolute. "Nothing about your heritage did this. Too many days chained to a wall did this. That and the fact that Imloth's been playing nice with both of us since we got back."

He smiled, tentatively. "I told him to stop that."

"Only with me. I imagine he's now learned his lesson about trying to go soft on you." Jaiyan squeezed his hands. "Now, come on. I promised Mhaere I'd help her in the kitchen tonight, and I've decided to bully you into helping me."

Valen gave her an innocent, round-eyed look. "_You're_ helping in the kitchen?"

"Oh, very amusing." She tugged him after her, paused long enough to slide an arm around his waist. "Just for that, the next time we go on some long journey through muddy forests, you're on cooking duty."

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The taproom was thick with the scents of smoke and stew and leather. In the corner, his tail curled around his ankles, Deekin sat perched on a stool. On the table before him, his lyre warred for space with parchment, an inkwell, a tankard, and a half-cleared plate. Absent-mindedly, Deekin dug his fork into his nearly-finished beef while he read over his afternoon's composition.

He had tried using a fork once in Old Master's cave, when some of the other kobolds had dragged in a stack of loot taken from a trader's wagon. He had not been entirely successful, but even later, Boss had been patient with him, even though she often just gave up on cutlery altogether while they were travelling, and out in the wilderness.

The tines clanged against the plate. Deekin looked up, adjusted his aim, and speared the last chunk of meat. He had not seen Boss enough the past few days, only caught her in the taproom in the evenings, when she came in smelling of hay and horses and Goat-man. She was worried, he knew, from the way her smile did not quite reach her eyes all the time, and the way she kept looking at Goat-man. Deekin wondered what he could say to help, but he did not want to speak of the cambion, or the torture, not unless she wanted to.

A shadow dived across him, and he looked up into Dakesh's slightly disgruntled dark eyes. "Dakesh have fun sparring?"

Dakesh grunted. "What's outside this city?"

"Countryside. Dakesh feel like travelling?"

"I don't know."

Deekin laid his fork down. "Then why Dakesh not asked Seer if portal can be opened again?"

Another grunt, this one even more non-committal.

"You like Waterdeep?"

"Yes, I like Waterdeep," the mercenary said slowly. "Tell me something. I've been hearing odd things."

Deekin blinked. "What things?"

"Mephistopheles. Dead, here, in this world. In this place. That true?"

"Well…" Deekin pushed his plate away. The mercenary was watching him through narrow, challenging eyes. "Yes, actually."

"And it was you?"

"Well, not just Deekin."

"You know what I mean. You and that tiefling, and your Boss?"

"Yep."

Dakesh scrubbed a hand through his hair. "You know, I heard that story in Sigil. How Mephistopheles had gone down to the Underdark, and up to the surface here, and how his campaign had been stopped. Course, whoever you talked to gave you a different tale. Heard somewhere it was an army of drow. Somewhere else, it was an army of freed tiefling slaves. Somewhere else, that it was just a mercenary with a bad temper and a big sword."

"No kobold mentioned?" Deekin clicked his teeth, unimpressed. "You ever go back to Sigil, you take Deekin's stories and ballads."

Dakesh smiled crookedly. "I remember you mentioned Cania. And then your innkeeper, Durnan, he told me about Mephistopheles, and how you saved the city."

Deekin shrugged. "Deekin just helping, with Boss and Goat-man."

"Killing an arch-devil is not _just helping_. It's damn impressive." Dakesh's smile widened. "Did finishing him make Cania worth it?"

_Cania, worth it?_ Deekin thought about it. Yes, the arch-devil fell, and painfully, his head caved in by Goat-man's flail, and it had been a long time coming, by the time they got back to Waterdeep. "Sort of," he said, honestly. "Cania not a nice place."

"No. I…was there a time or two. Bitch of a place to fight in. Cold makes your sword stick. Can't navigate worth a damn in the snow."

"Why?"

"Why there?" Dakesh sighed. His dark eyes were pinned on the table. "Let's say there was little choice involved."

Deekin nodded sagely. "Little choice involved for Deekin either."

"Oh?"

"Yep. Deekin was dead, and Boss brought Deekin back, so Deekin had to go to Cania." He frowned. "Not that Deekin not be grateful for being alive again, of course."

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Nathyrra kicked the door closed behind her, ignored the flurry of shouting from her councilors. A quick glance at the table showed her Erelaer, sitting poised with her hands locked on the polished surface. Behind, two soldiers paced, and another cleric roughly dragged a chair out. Disregarding the fourth loud demand for explanation, Nathyrra stalked around the table, motioned for Andaryn to stand near her, and folded her arms over the back of her chair.

"Matron Mother," a soldier said, sounding harried. "The rumour at the gates is that your patrol is dead, and that you were followed."

"The _truth_ is that yes, the patrol is dead. All of them." She looked down the table to Erelaer, saw how the cleric was staring down at her own hands. "Were we followed? I do not know. Which is why I have ordered more guards at the wall."

"Were you attacked?"

Nathyrra hesitated. What could she say? _Yes, by things that swept out of the darkness. _"Yes," she said. "I want wizards up on the walls as well. I want every spell cast that could detect movement, or heat, or cold. If so much as the _air_ moves in front of the gates, I want to hear."

The soldier ducked his head. "Your will, Matron Mother."

"What followed you?" Sitting near Erelaer, another cleric leaned her chin on her hand. "Matron Mother?"

"We don't know," Nathyrra answered flatly. "You must…I need time."

"_Time?_" The cleric laughed. "Time for what, Matron Mother? Time to pry more secrets out of your new pet?"

"Time to discover some strategy."

"He knows, doesn't he?" The cleric's gaze jumped to Andaryn. "We have lost _no one _since we returned. Not to violence. Why not string him up at the gates, and he can welcome whatever it is that's followed him?"

"No." Nathyrra's voice rose, startlingly loud. "No," she repeated. "Do we punish our own out of fear?"

"He is not our own," Erelaer snapped. "He is no more than an intruder, and should be outside your protection."

"He is of this city as much as any of you. The Seer welcomed you, _all of you_, regardless of where your loyalties may have once lain. We are _all_ exiles, and the Seer would not see any of us executed out of spite and fear."

The cleric smiled, and Nathyrra realised her mistake.

"The Seer is, quite simply, no longer with us. You stand as our Matron Mother, and yet you would protect this outsider before your own people."

Nathyrra gripped the back of the chair until her fingers cramped. "No. I merely wish this city to stand, safe and guarded. I say we use whatever knowledge he might have to help us."

"He has plenty," Erelaer said. Her mouth curved up into a thin smile. "He certainly knew how to protect you best, Matron Mother. But if he still proves stubborn, perhaps a flogging would loosen his tongue."

"No." Nathyrra could not hide the urgent note in her voice. This was spiraling out of control too fast, and she was not quite sure how to salvage any of it. _Her position, the safety of the city, Andaryn's life_. To kill any dissenters now would prove her no more than a tyrant, and not worthy of her rank as successor to the Seer. _But let them live, and risk rebellion, and Andaryn's death, and the future of this city. _

_No,_ she thought. _That is not going to happen. _

"This solves nothing," she said, firm and clear. "If the city is under threat, we need to meet it."

Erelaer smiled again. "Then what do you propose, Matron Mother?"

"We need to be at the walls." She unlatched her fingers from the back of the chair. "I want healers at the infirmary. And I need a volunteer."

The word itself still tasted strange; under the Valsharess and the Red Sisters, there had been no _volunteers_, only fighters and servants, assassins and slaves, orders given and received and carried out under pain of death.

Erelaer arched an eyebrow. "For what daring task, Matron Mother?"

"A runner," she said. "To go to Undermountain, and up to the surface."

"To the tavern." Erelaer's lips twisted. "That's foolhardy, Matron Mother. All we know of the Seer is that she chose to not return to Lith My'athar. Is there any guarantee she is still there?"

"No," she answered. "In which case, we are alone, and nothing changes."

Erelaer nodded slowly. "Very well. Who? Your new pet?"

"No. His knowledge is too useful."

"Ah. Then yourself, perhaps, Matron Mother?"

Nathyrra shoved back a sudden flare of anger. _Oh, yes, you'd like that, wouldn't you? To have me gone, and the city at risk? _"No. I fear I will be needed here." She spun, leveled a glare at the soldier. "Send me your fastest scout."

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Under the pale light of the newly-risen moon, the Seer shed her robes. Through the gap in the curtains, she could see the last quarter, beautiful above the turrets and roofs of Waterdeep. She knelt, raised both hands, and let the light wash across her open palms. Since the return from Sigil, her devotions had been uninterrupted, almost pleasant in their quiet gentleness.

But tonight, when Imloth had meandered downstairs in search of dinner, the slightest, uncomfortable frisson of something cold had prickled her belly. She had learned long ago that uncertain, directionless apprehension could mean anything or nothing, but even so, she was slightly troubled. Her dreams had shown her nothing untoward, but as the moon had risen, her spine and shoulders had stiffened, and some indefinable sense of _wrongness_ had settled under her skin.

It could not be Valen, or Jaiyan, or Deekin; they were safe. From the tiefling and Imloth, separately, she had heard about the sparring session. Despite Valen's concern, she had smiled, kissed his cheek, and told him Imloth had survived far worse, including training drill in Lith My'athar. He had nodded, and gruffly agreed, and had muttered something about finding Jaiyan downstairs.

She wondered about the mercenary, Dakesh, but if something had tried to track him from Sigil, surely she would have sensed another portal opening. And aside from a hefty lump on his forearm, Imloth was unharmed. She tilted her head back, let the moonlight flood across her, and into her eyes.

_Please,_ she thought. _I need guidance. Please. _

For a long, unhurried moment, she _felt_ the light against her skin, and then her vision was darkening, and she heard running footsteps, harsh and frantic. Not here, not in Waterdeep, she knew. She was hearing something _that had been_, something that made her mouth taste of dust and dry rock. She had time to think a single word, _Underdark,_ before every muscle on her frame burned as if she had been running, bolting blindly.

Her mind opened up on dark caves, and dripping water, and darkness. _And a drow male, running as if he fled for his life. Blood tracked thick trails across his shoulders, down one leg. His breathing was uneven, coming out in gasps. Each jarring footfall jolted another burst of pain through him. As if she ran with him – almost as if she _was_ him – the Seer followed him as he fled. Through the unraveling darkness, to high gates that she knew so very well. Swords flickered, along with confused shouts, and more orders. The drow begged something, his voice almost worn out, and they clubbed him unconscious, laid him out on the stone, thin and spent. A new set of footsteps intruded, light and sinuous. Then Nathyrra's voice, recognizable and imperious._

And the Seer _knew_. Knew even as Nathyrra ordered her soldiers to carry the wounded outsider that he had brought trouble on his heels, however unbidden. And knew, as the vision unreeled, that he had been sent at the behest of the Valsharess, along with others, to the deep darkness, to bargain with something terrible. Knew that betrayal had left their leader dead, and most of them slaughtered, until he ran with nothing but his life.

"Do you know," Imloth said from behind her, "I am now rather sorry that I never saw you pray in Lith My'athar. Not like this, anyway."

The vision shattered, and the Seer gasped. Her head spun, full of too much darkness and the thick scent of incense. _The way it drifts in the temple,_ _and tastes of apprehension_. "Lith My'athar," she repeated, dazedly.

"Yes." Imloth's arms slid around her waist, and he pulled her against him. "You are beautiful."

Her bare back was curving against his chest, brushing against his leathers. She tried to speak, but Imloth nuzzled the side of her neck, gently kissed the tip of her ear. "Oh…stop."

"Stop?" Lazily, he turned her in his arms, lifted his gaze to her face, and froze. "What's wrong?"

Another wave of dizziness racked her. Bright and sharp against the inside of her eyelids, she saw Nathyrra, screaming someone's name, and the air swarming and cold, and she knew that this was _what would be_. Blood on stone, and fear behind high walls, and Nathyrra, her eyes rolling wide.

Imloth murmured her name, and leaned in to gently kiss her. The sudden, warm pressure of his mouth sent her thoughts flying apart. She felt his hands, one cupping her face, the other sinking into her hair.

"I'm here," he whispered. "Tell me. What did you see?"

"Lith My'athar," she said. "Lith My'athar is in danger."


	29. Chapter 29

_**Chapter Twenty-Nine – Decisions**_

Jaiyan leaned up on one elbow, idly watching as Valen ran a cloth over his armour. He paused to check the whorled patterns near the collar, traced a critical finger along the metal. "You know, you haven't even worn it for three days," she remarked.

He smiled. "It's reassuring."

"I noticed." She waited while he finished, propped the armour up, checked Devil's Bane next. She regarded the assured, elegant motion of his fingers, and remembered how his hands had curled and clutched at shackles. "Valen?"

"Mmm?"

"Come here."

His smile returned. He turned, kicked his boots off. His shirt and breeches followed, abandoned on the floor behind him. She grinned, and said, "You're a filthy tease, tiefling."

"I thought you liked looking at me."

"I do." She leaned up, studied his tall, muscled frame. "You know, I think you've put on weight."

"I have?" He frowned. "Is that good?"

"Yes, you silly man. Weight you lost in Sigil." She reached out, gently slapped his backside, and laughed at his vaguely affronted expression. "It means you've been eating better, that's all."

"Oh." He climbed under the sheets beside her, scooped her firmly against his chest. "Jaiyan, did you ever want to go back and see your village again?"

"Were you talking to Imloth?"

"No," he said, slightly perplexed. "Should I have?"

"No. He was asking about horses today." She leaned against his shoulder, played with his hair. "I don't know. I don't think I want to."

"Why not?"

"Don't know." She shrugged. "There's not much there."

He kissed her forehead. "I understand."

"Besides, didn't some ballad writer say you can never really go home again?"

"It's alright," he said, softly. "Jaiyan, I will love you whether or not I ever see where you came from. It's not that important. Well, it is…if it is. If that made any sense."

She laughed, and relaxed properly against him. "It did. Are you getting tired of Waterdeep already?"

"No, not really." He rolled over until he faced her properly. "I am unused to having nothing to do."

"Yes, I know what you mean." Even when she and Deekin had imposed on Durnan's charity the first time, she had worked guard duty, or else run messages through the city. This time, though, they had little to do but eat, and spar, and try not to dwell too strongly upon memories of Sigil.

"We're both wanderers, I think," Valen said. "When I am in a place, it is usually to fulfill a duty, or else because I am on my way somewhere else. The only place I ever really stayed in without either was Sigil, and that was long ago."

She curled up around him, pulling his leg over her hip and slipping one arm around his waist. "I've never been good at staying put, either. I think it's fairly miraculous that I didn't leave home sooner. That said, in twenty years, when I'm all grey and aged and ugly, I may change my mind."

Valen laughed. "You'll never be ugly."

"But I will be aged and grey? Nice." She nipped at his shoulder, was rewarded by his amused laugh. "The awful part is that you'll probably look just as you do now, and I won't."

"We don't know that." He lifted her chin, his blue eyes suddenly serious. "My love, I'll be with you, no matter how aged and grey you look."

Jaiyan laughed, a spluttering and uncertain kind of laugh. "Thank you, so much. Though knowing our luck, we'll get eaten by some huge monsters soon enough."

"Gods above, woman, do you _ever_ know when to keep your mouth closed?" Valen grinned, turned onto his back, carrying her with him.

"Of course not." She let her knees sink onto the bed, either side of him. "Don't you know that by now?"

"Painfully well."

She glared down at him, but whatever indignant retort she was planning was forgotten when he leaned up and quite thoroughly kissed her. His hands swept up the line of her shoulders, clasped the back of her head. She grabbed his horns, heard his soft, answering sigh. She was busy exploring his throat with her lips when a knock at the door made her groan. "Oh, Gods above. Do you think they'll go away if we stay quiet?"

Valen laughed, his broad frame shaking underneath her. "When are _you_ ever quiet?"

"It's not _always_ my fault."

The second knock was louder, and Imloth's voice followed, clipped and slightly strained. "Are you both awake?"

Valen frowned, gently slid Jaiyan off him. He flicked the sheet across her, and called out, "Let me get dressed."

Watching, Jaiyan grinned shamelessly when he leaned over, found his breeches. "Unless a dragon's about to burn the inn down, tell him to go away."

He yanked the laces tight, opened the door. "What is it?"

"The Seer had a vision." Imloth stayed in the doorway. "Could you both come downstairs? To the parlour?"

Valen nodded. "Of course."

Jaiyan sat up as he closed the door. Imloth's voice had been worryingly taut. She kicked the sheet away, accepted the folded clothes Valen passed across to her. She dressed quickly, noting how the lines on his forehead had deepened. "Serious?"

"I don't know." He pulled his boots back on, waited while she found her belt, draped over the back of the chair. "Let's find out."

Downstairs, the taproom was deserted and dark, the parlour beyond lit only by a candle and the flood of moonlight slanting in through the windows. They discovered both drow on their feet, the Seer poised beside the curtains, and Imloth pacing. He was moving with short, snapping steps, and his hands kept jerking up to the leather ties in his hair. _And he's fully armoured, and looks about as alert as he did in Sigil, _Jaiyan thought. _What has she seen?_

"What's happened?" Valen asked.

"Lith My'athar is in danger," Imloth answered.

The Seer turned, the long fall of her hair bright against the panes behind. "Lith My'athar is threatened, as is Nathyrra's position as Matron Mother."

"By what?"

"I don't know yet." The Seer's lips thinned. "Something…something that is old. Though I fear the city will be torn apart by rebellion inside the walls before the gates are ever breached by attackers."

"We're going down," Imloth said, quietly. "Tonight, as soon as we're prepared."

Valen turned, looked at Jaiyan, and she saw sudden desperation in his face. _He wants to go,_ she thought. _Of course he wants to go. She's the Seer, and she saved him, and Lith My'athar was his sanctuary for so long. But the Underdark is treacherous, and dangerous, and you didn't exactly get out alive last time. Not in any proper sense. _

But the drow were allies – _more than that, friends, and you know it _– and she thought she understood what Lith My'athar meant, as beacon and as practical refuge. _And you know they'll go alone if they have to, and you know they won't actually _ask_ you to come with them. _

Another thought prodded her, insistent and slightly mocking, that without Imloth and the Seer, she and Valen would likely have rotted away in Sigil, and Deekin would have been killed.

She clasped Valen's hand. "Valen, love, if you want to go, then we'll go."

His expression relaxed into a relieved smile. "Thank you."

"Give us time to get ready." Jaiyan summoned a weary grin, and added, "So who gets to tell Durnan?"

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In the kitchens, Valen wrapped a thick chunk of cheese, dropped it into the pack alongside salted ham, hard biscuit and bread. He had seen the Seer's face, the firm set to her jaw, the slight widening of her eyes when Jaiyan had agreed so readily. _Did she only agree for you? Possibly, but you know she's fond of the drow. And perhaps…perhaps you need this. Something to do. Something that doesn't involve demons. _

He snorted and pulled the straps tight. _So the Underdark is the _easy_ option now?_

Still, he knew the caverns and tunnels well, and this time, there would be no Valsharess, no arch-devil. _No, there's likely to be something worse. _

_ As if you could have said no. As if you could have turned away from the Seer. _A sudden, creeping thought brushed his mind, and he wondered what he might have done if Jaiyan had refused. _Would you have gone without her?_

_ No. _He knew that much; he did not want to be parted from her, not so soon after Sigil, and hopefully never. _Still, you probably wouldn't be very good company for a good long while, would you? _He sighed and added another waterskin to the pack.

"What's with the dismal sighing?" Small arms slid around his waist, and Jaiyan leaned her forehead against his back. "Are you alright?"

He caught her wrists, squeezed gently. "You didn't….you didn't say yes just for me, did you?"

"Partly." She shifted, burrowing under his arm until her cheek was pressed against his side. "I know you would always want to help the Seer, and I understand why." Her left hand slid down, wrapped around his tail. "But I like them as well, and well, they did come to Sigil for us."

"That's not…" He shook his head. "You're not thinking this is a way of paying them back?"

"No, silly tiefling." Jaiyan slipped around in front of him, kept her arms round his waist. The hilt of her sword dug against his leg, but he had no inclination to pull away. "This has nothing to do with payment of any kind. I know how you feel about the Seer, and besides, when friends need help, you don't just walk away from them."

"Thank you," he said again. "You…"

She grinned up at him. "Yes..?"

"I love you," he said helplessly. He wanted to tell her how much it meant, that she understood him, that she was still with him after Sigil and the cambion. _She _knows_, you idiot, _he thought. So instead, he lifted her off her feet, and kissed her until she ran out of breath and was giggling against him.

"Oh, _Boss_," Deekin said disconsolately from the doorway. "Boss say adventure be calling and drow city be in danger again, and Deekin get here to find Boss and Goat-man hugging. _Again_."

Valen groaned and carefully lowered her off him. "Oh, Gods. Shouldn't you be writing something adventurous or pining over some poor unoffending dragon somewhere?"

"Nope." Deekin grinned. "Deekin been packing. Boss knows anything else yet?"

"No. I think this is going to be one those _learn as you go_ situations."

"Oh. One of _those_." Deekin's wings rustled as he shrugged. "Actually doesn't sound much different from normal."

Footsteps echoed in the passageway, accompanied by Durnan demanding to know where Jaiyan was. He strode into the kitchen, shirt askew and pulled half out of his belt, bootlaces trailing and hair unkempt. "Though you'd be sneaking out in the middle of the night, did you?"

She winced. "We're going to the Underdark, Durnan. Makes no difference whether we go in daylight or not."

"Fair point." He grunted. "Imloth says you're heading down to that drow city of his."

"That's right."

"I want to see you, missy. In the parlour."

Durnan whirled away, leaving Jaiyan standing with her mouth half-open and a slightly sheepish expression on her face. "Well. That was charming."

Valen smiled. "Go and see him. He cares about you, my love." He leaned down, kissed her softly. "I'll finish up here and meet you in the cellar."

He watched her go, his gaze lingering on the way her unbound hair fell across her narrow shoulders, how she absently flicked it back from her face.

"Goat-man!" Deekin hopped up onto the stood nearest and poked his arm. "Stop day-dreaming and keep organizing."

Valen growled and threw the last, half-empty backpack at him. "Then make yourself useful and help me."

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Jaiyan stepped into the parlour, and was greeted by candlelight and Durnan as he turned to hand her a small glass. She lifted it, tasted smooth, soft whiskey, and nearly choked when she noticed Imloth, sitting poised and taciturn near the fireplace. "Good Gods, Imloth! Don't _lurk _like that. Or were you just practicing for when we get down into Undermountain?"

He shrugged, stood silently. "I'm sorry."

She snorted and had a second attempt at the whiskey. "Durnan, I…."

"I know." The innkeeper sat heavily. In the low, flickering light, every crease on his face seemed deep and dark. "It seems that you only just came back. You be careful down there." His gaze jumped across to Imloth. "Both of you."

Jaiyan smiled. "We're coming back, Durnan. We'll turn up and beg your charity, probably penniless and utterly destitute."

Durnan narrowed his eyes. "What about you, lad?"

"I don't know," Imloth said, quietly. "We may have to stay, the Seer and I. There are too few places like Lith My'athar in the Underdark, and we will not let it fall simply so we can traipse around safely on the surface."

"Well, just don't get yourself killed. Or shot in the leg." Durnan scowled. "Any of you. And if you run into trouble down there, you'd damn well better make sure it doesn't make its way up here. I had enough excitement the last time you went down into the Underdark, missy."

Jaiyan drained the glass, grinned. "I'll try, I promise."

"Alright. Well, it'll be nice to know my pantry won't be getting plundered again by that kobold of yours any time soon." Durnan pushed up to his feet, gave them both a long, searching look. "Go on, get out of here."

She made it almost into the corridor, Imloth padding soundlessly alongside, before Durnan added, "And, lad? You help that tiefling take care of her. Silly girl sometimes doesn't know danger until it's trying to rip her arms off."

Jaiyan spluttered. "Do you have no faith?"

"Little. Now get out of here. I'm too old to have my sleep disrupted like this."

She grinned over her shoulder at him before following Imloth down towards the cellar steps. "Imloth?"

He shot her a quick look through thick eyelashes. "Yes, what?"

Gone was the relaxed pose and easy smile of yesterday afternoon. Instead, he walked like some caged cat, one hand locked around his sword hilt, and his shoulders stiff. "Are you alright?"

He yanked the cellar door wide. "Yes," he said, still clipped. "I just…want to be gone."

"I understand." She trailed him down into the portal room, and across the dry stone floor to where Valen was wrestling the trapdoor open. The Seer stood poised nearby, clad in the tight-fitting leathers she had worn in Sigil.

"Strange contraption." Valen eyed the revealed platform, hanging beneath the pulleys and suspended by four ropes. "Who thought it was a good idea?"

Jaiyan shrugged. "I suppose Durnan knows. It's a way down into Undermountain that takes mad adventurers straight to the excitement, I guess. And you can go on to the Underdark from there, if you're so inclined. No messing around on the surface looking for the right cave or anything."

The door opened again, and Deekin ambled in, impressively weighed down with packs. "Used to be Halaster's tower, Boss," he told her absently. "Before Durnan built the inn. So Halaster could go down to Undermountain and back up, before he decided Undermountain more fun."  
"Oh. There you go. Thanks for the lesson, Deeks."

Deekin grinned, and held the door open. Dakesh stepped through, eyes firmly fixed on the floor. "Dakesh want to say something, Boss."

Studying him, Jaiyan noticed that the mercenary was garbed for travelling, his sword at his hip, and the hood of his cape pulled up. "Yes?"

Dakesh looked past her, to the Seer. "Can you call those portals of yours down in the Underdark?"

The Seer gave him a raking, thoughtful look. "Yes, if I have enough room, and enough time."

"Alright. From what the kobold says, this venture of yours looks to be dangerous. Need another sword?"

"And what would you want?"

Dakesh shrugged. "For payment I'll take a portal out of here for whenever I think it's got too tricky, or if I get bored of killing drow."

Imloth shrugged, glanced across at the Seer. "He's useful, but it's your decision."

"Very well." The Seer's pale eyes narrowed. "While you are with us, you will remain loyal. This may even include taking orders."

Dakesh laughed. "You don't say? Somehow I'm sure I'll manage."

"Not staying in Waterdeep?" Jaiyan asked.

"What's in Waterdeep for me to do? I've run enough guard duty to keep me bored for a decade. But you know how the Underdark works, which might keep us alive a while longer, and besides, I figure I might get to kill some drow."

Imloth snorted. "You've been to the Underdark before?"

"A few times." Dakesh's mouth shifted into a sour grin. "Didn't get much chance to explore the surroundings, if that's what you're asking."

Jaiyan hopped up onto the platform, turned, and bumped into Valen. His arm slid around her waist, steadying her. She leaned properly against him, squeezed his hand. "You alright?"

He nodded, leaned down to gently kiss her forehead. "Yes."

"Good." She reached up, grabbed the nearest rope. "Right. Let's go see how Undermountain's looking these days."

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On the walls, Nathyrra paced. Her third look out at the flat plains in as many heartbeats showed her nothing untoward. Forcing herself to look away, she scanned the walkway, counted the guards again, and swung her gaze back to the high rock columns.

She had sent the scout with orders to run, not stop, move as fast as possible until he found himself inside the corridors of Undermountain. Still, even if he crossed through into Halaster's maze quickly, it was a journey of some days to the surface from there.

_If he even gets there_, some cruel thought suggested. She had chosen him for his unflagging devotion to the Seer, even in her absence, and his lean, runner's build. He had accepted without question, and had left swiftly, taking only leathers and two daggers, a small satchel of food, a waterskin, and a hastily-written note explaining their peril. Scribed in drow, since Nathyrra neither trusted the surfacers at The Yawning Portal, nor believed they would be likely to have one among them who could read her language.

She glared out at the unwavering darkness again. Beneath the soft, barely-there sounds of her own feet against the walkway, she could hear Andaryn breathing where he sat, perched up on the crenellations themselves, his legs braced over the gap above her head.

He stirred, his head turning to look past her, to where the steps descended down towards the gates. "Now, whatever could _they_ want?"

Nathyrra saw Erelaer first, and six other councilors, flanked by ten soldiers. Unease ran up and down her spine, and her hand slid down to a dagger. _She said she'd be coming to check the defenses, _she thought. _Yes, but with an armed escort?_

Andaryn dropped down onto the walkway. His fingers tightened around his sword hilt, and the look he shot at her was expectant.

"Matron Mother," Erelaer called up. Her voice sounded unhurried, almost bland. "Anything?"

"Nothing." Nathyrra managed a thin smile. "Care to see for yourself?"

"I will decline, for now. Perhaps you would care to step down here?"

Nathyrra shrugged. "I fear I am more needed here."

Something flashed in the cleric's eyes, part frustration, part hatred, and Nathyrra recognized both all too easily. Too many times, she had seen ambitious Red Sisters cut down by their peers and their seniors, because they had not the wit to back down from an open fight, or opt for the silent, assassin's choice instead.

"Then your pet, Matron Mother," Erelaer said, every word sounding bitten off. "Send him down, that I might question him."

"He's been questioned."

"The safety of this city is at risk," Erelaer hissed. "Send him down, Matron Mother, or we will take him from you."

On any other day – _no, _she thought, _in any other place _– she would have called the cleric's bluff, pushed the situation as far as she dared, prodded until someone else drew blood first. _Because then, the blame is less yours, and the retribution all the more satisfying_.

Beside her, Andaryn went rigid, and she heard him loosen his sword in its sheath. She was aware of the listening, taut silence along the walls, and knew she had moments to act.

"No." A single word, and not pitched in a tone meant to provoke. "No," she said again, equally flat. "I will not see your fear of outsiders ruin this city, not now, not with this danger. _If_ we survive this, and the city still stands, then perhaps we shall talk."

Erelaer's smile widened. "I have served and betrayed greater mistresses than you, Nathyrra. No right of declared succession or blood gave you the title you claimed."

She wanted to scream in response, snarl that _she_ had led them back down, that _she_ had ensured the rebuilding of the temple, that _she_ had seen the caverns around them mopped clean of the Valsharess' straggling troops. Instead, she slid her dagger half clear of its scabbard, and gauged the distance past Erelaer to her escort again. _The cleric will go down quickly. Dart in before she can call any spells, and cut her pretty, soft throat. _Equally clinically, she noted which of the soldiers looked the heaviest, and which were not _quite_ paying enough attention.

"Even the Seer…" Erelaer paced away from the steps. "Even the Seer never _said_ to us that you were to take on the mantle of her position and her power."

"I have never…" Nathyrra caught herself.

"Never? Oh, Nathyrra." Erelaer's hand moved, a slight flicking of slender fingers. "I ask you again. Send him down, or we'll take him from you."

"No," Nathyrra said, and irrevocably chose. Three steps took her to the stairway, and another four sent her flying down towards the cleric. She heard Andaryn behind her, unsheathing his sword and following.

Erelaer dived away, her hands crackling. She muttered some spell, and the air around Nathyrra's head whined. There was a strange, stretched instant when Nathyrra's thoughts were curiously flat, and she remembered how _simple_ it was, to draw a blade and attack, and bedamned to talking and negotiation.

Andaryn cried out a warning, and she ducked a thrown knife. The impetus carried down the last three steps, and she rolled up onto her knees. Two savage swipes cut the first soldier's feet out from under him. She did not stop to watch him topple, instead vaulted past him. Shoulder-first, she ploughed into the next soldier, raked a dagger across his throat.

_So easy,_ she thought. _Can't argue when their throat's flapping open. _

Some hot, burrowing spell slammed into her chest, doubled her over. She snarled, thrust past the pain. Her footing was spoiled, and she stumbled too far when the flat of a sword cracked across her upper arm. Somewhere overhead, she heard racing footsteps, and voices, asking what was happening, was she alright, were they under attack?

Nathyrra darted past a male's lunge, drove one dagger into his stomach, and smacked the hilt of another against his temple. He folded silently, and she swept past him. Sweat tickled her eyes, and she was aware of too many soldiers, and her councilors, circling. She heard Erelaer shouting, ordered the guards on the walls to fall back, fall back now under pain of death. Someone choked out a curse behind her, and then Andaryn was beside her again, his sword dripping red.

She looked at him, saw that he was not hurt, not yet, and that his lips were pulled back in a fierce grin.

Two soldiers ahead of her rushed at them, swords swinging in low. Andaryn met the first, deflected another stroke, and plunged his blade into the other male's belly. Another spell roared past Nathyrra's face, this one sizzling and shedding white light that blazed across the inside of her eyelids. She spun again, and knew that there were simply too many of them. Little room to move, and less to retreat, and _how exactly was she going to explain this anyway?_

A fist crashed against the small of her back, and she staggered. Recovered quickly enough to spin a dagger in her hand and bury it to the hilt in a soldier's ribcage. She yanked it out, swearing when it caught on bone. Andaryn shouted her name, half drowned out under the sputtering noise of a spell screeching overhead and impacting against the steps.

Another punch glanced off her shoulder, and Nathyrra swung round. Another soldier dived in, and the point of his blade sketched a hot line across her hip. She jolted back, and nearly fell when the pommel of a sword drove against her stomach. She sucked down a painful breath, heard Erelaer order the soldiers in closer. The flat of another sword smacked against the back of her knees, buckling her. Strangely distant, she heard Andaryn snarling, heard his booted feet scraping against stone.

_They're trying to not kill you,_ she realised, dazedly. _Why..?_

Another blow landed against her temple, and all curiosity fled. Someone wrenched the daggers from her, and other hands went to work on her weapon belts. They dropped away, and she felt oddly light. She dragged her head up, stared through narrowed eyes at Andaryn.

He was on his knees, twisting against the punishing hold of two soldiers. They had his arms wrenched behind his back, and blood threaded down his cheek, blotting into his hair.

"Tell him to stop fighting," Erelaer said, calm and cold. "Tell him, or they'll cut his throat, and string him up already dead."

Nathyrra nodded slowly. "Andaryn…"

He glared, but his frame relaxed slightly, and he did not jerk away when Erelaer unbuckled his sword belt. She paused, looked into his face, trailed a hand down the sharp slant of his cheekbone. "Better," she remarked. "Now, Matron Mother, your actions have left me with a single, regrettable choice."

_Would've attacked us in any case,_ Nathyrra thought. _She had no intention of letting us get down the steps without a fight. _

"Lith My'athar stands at risk. Perhaps you forget, Matron Mother, but I was there, in the darkness, when we were attacked." The cleric studied Andaryn for another long, thoughtful moment. "He knows these things, whatever they are. He brought them with him. Perhaps he should be the first to greet them."

Andaryn heaved against the soldiers holding him. Erelaer caught his chin, and slapped him when he yanked away from her. "Take him through the gates and leave him there."

They were going to tie him to the gates, Nathyrra knew, throw ropes up around nails or hooks and leave him there. She had seen such punishments in Menzoberranzan, but never here, never in Lith My'athar. _Going to offer him up, just as the Valsharess and Saerith planned, but who's to say these things would be satisfied with one drow male who escaped them?_

She tried to move, tried to stand, and realised that there were hands against her shoulders, at her forearms, pinning her. Her head throbbed, the pounding of blood in her ears too loud. She blinked the sweat from her eyes, focused on Erelaer. "And what of me?"

"You?" A smile pulled at the cleric's mouth again. "You, Matron Mother…you will be up on the walls, with us, helping the guards, and watching."


	30. Chapter 30

_First off, a huge apology for the delay in posting. Dragon Age ate my soul for two weeks or so, and then last week at work was full of end-of-term Christmassy things. Anyway, all is now done, so updates should be back to twice a week or so, I hope. Also, there's a line of dialogue in this that was quite liberally borrowed from something utterly apt that BronxWench said in a review, so thank-you to her for that, and I hope she enjoys it :)_

_**Chapter Thirty – Friends and Enemies**_

The twisting corridors of Undermountain stretched out ahead, unraveling into shadow. Underfoot, the stone was chipped and worn, and Jaiyan found her thoughts wandering back to the first time she had explored this place. _Only you and Deekin,_ she remembered. _And drow war parties in those high, echoing chambers, and Halaster himself, all mad. _Still, this time around, the passageways had so far proved mercifully empty. Footprints tracked through thick dust, and she had heard the distant sound of running, but nothing had lurched out of the darkness. Beside her, a tiny magelight bobbed alongside Deekin's head, while Valen flanked her other side, and the drow led, preferring the darkness. Somewhere further back, she could hear Dakesh as he followed.

It seemed so strangely long ago, she reflected, when she had stumbled into The Yawning Portal amid the cold and the brisk wind, and heard of Durnan's troubles. _And then we were actually crazy enough to go down to the Underdark knowing almost nothing except that drow were coming up and shouldn't be._ _And now you're doing it again, even though you _know_ something awful's happening down there. _She grinned to herself, and almost stumbled when the floor gave way to uneven, steep steps.

Without turning his head, Valen reached out, steadied her, and murmured, "Day-dreaming?"

"Mmm. Yes." She tugged him closer, and whispered back, "About you, wearing nothing but that silly smile you sometimes get, a bowl of strawberries, and a lot of cream."

A faint flush crossed his cheekbones. "You're a bad liar, my love."

"Well, yes. But I like seeing you squirm like that."

He steered her down the last of the steps, paused to look up at the high, vaulting ceiling. Dust clung to the dark stone, and the air was musty. Heaped against the broad columns were black shapes, crumpled and half-hidden in the gloom. Jaiyan noticed dropped weapons as well, curling and elegant, and undeniably drow. But there was no thick stink of rotting flesh, of anything decaying; instead, the silence was dry and stale, old.

"Was it like this when you last came through here?" Valen asked quietly.

"No. This…must have happened after."

Up ahead, Imloth stopped. He half-turned into the light, one hand held up. "When we went up to the tavern, we found them all. They're drow, mostly ours, some of the Valsharess' troops. Mephistopheles called them up from death and set them against the creatures in here to clear the corridors."

Jaiyan's smile died. "You…found them all?"

"Yes. I remember…I scouted through first, and I found one of my soldiers. I'd _seen_ him die at the Valsharess' fortress. Seen it happen, clear as I see you in front of me." Imloth drew down a steadying breath. "I saw an arbalest take him just below his collarbone, took him clear off his feet. And yet when we came through here, I found him again. His thigh was open to the bone, and he'd died again."

"But you kept going," Jaiyan said, quietly.

"We had nowhere else to go." Imloth shrugged, turned away.

A little chastened, Jaiyan trailed after him, picking up the pace again as his strides lengthened. She felt Valen's hand wrap around hers, and she squeezed back gratefully. Ahead, the passageway snaked down another flight of steps, and tracked beneath high, broad columns. She recalled carefully and quietly exploring that first time, with Deekin, and how they had managed to find themselves hopelessly lost more than once.

The day wore on, unchanging, and Jaiyan slowly became aware of the sheer _amount_ of stone overhead. The corridors spiraled inexorably downwards, crossing through open chambers bare of anything living. By the time Imloth called for a halt, her feet were aching, there was a cramp somewhere in her lower back, and she was vaguely wondering if perhaps they should have stayed in bed after all. After a quick, cold meal, she settled herself in her blankets next to Valen. Past his shoulder, she could see Deekin and Dakesh, both sitting near the kobold's magelight. The mercenary's gaze was turned down towards a roll of parchment, and there was a slight, perplexed furrow between his eyebrows. Jaiyan smirked, glanced across towards the barred door, and saw Imloth pacing, both hands locked around his belt. The Seer reached out, caught a handful of his hair, and gently tugged. She murmured something into his ear, and Jaiyan saw his whole frame relax. He smiled, and let the Seer guide him down onto the floor beside her.

Feeling suddenly intrusive, Jaiyan dragged her gaze away from the drow, and back to Deekin. She saw the little kobold rock forward, grabbing Dakesh's hand and pointing out something important on the parchment. That excited, eager smile followed, and Jaiyan found herself scowling.

"Is my lady jealous?" Valen asked softly.

"No, I…" She rolled over properly. "Yes. Is it obvious?"

He smiled. "Only to me, I suspect."

"I know it's stupid. I just…" _He's mine,_ she thought sourly. _He's my kobold. He's always been…mine, since the forest near Hilltop. _"I don't know. He's…mine, I suppose."

"So am I," Valen said quietly. "I doubt he sees nearly as much of you as he did when I wasn't with you."

"I suppose." _And he came to the fortress in Sigil, and you know he'd go to the end of the world with you if you asked him to. _But the worrying, resentful knot in her stomach did not vanish. "It's just…that mercenary is following him around like a puppy. A large, very dangerous, sword-carrying puppy." She frowned. "Who apparently wants to kill a lot of drow."

Valen laughed. "Envy does not become you, my love."

She sighed. "I know. Distract me."

His eyebrows shot up. "Here? With company?"

"Oh, very funny."

"I do not think Dakesh is a threat," Valen said slowly. "I think he's with us because he does not know where else to go. He doesn't want to go back to Sigil, at least not yet, but he knows nothing of this world, so he stays with us. He puts up with Deekin because of what happened in Sigil. And yes, he's very good with a blade, so he will be useful."

"Well. Aren't _you_ in an astute sort of mood?" She grinned. "Since when did you become such a thorough judge of character?"

"Since I realised he was no threat to me."

"To you, or to _me?_"

"Well…" A sudden blush darkened his face. "To you. _Obviously_, before you feel the need to say something sarcastic. And anyway, what do you mean, _become_ such a thorough judge of character?"

She laughed, leaned forward and kissed the tip of his nose. "Because your usual way is simply to distrust everyone."

"No, that's not…"

"Yes, it is. Or have you conveniently forgotten that part where you held a knife to my throat?"

He winced. "But…_you_ came falling out of the portal."

"All my fault, obviously. And I'm such a delicate, fragile little flower of a girl." She smirked at him, and was rewarded when the firm line of his mouth cracked into a smile. "And then I'm quite sure you couldn't stand me for _weeks_."

"Well, maybe not weeks…" He laughed, a little helplessly. "And I wouldn't say couldn't stand. Just…didn't trust."

"I know." She cupped the side of his face. "And now you're looking too serious again. Valen, you are entirely forgiven for any stubborn lack of trusting, I promise. With, of course, the threat that I will continue to tell people that the man I love held me against a pillar and stuck a knife against my throat on the day we met."

"You're a cruel woman." He reached out, flicked loose hair out of her collar. "I'd been meaning to ask, I don't know why I haven't yet…did I actually hurt you?"

"Oh, Valen. Yes, it did hurt. It was a knife, you silly tiefling."

One side of his mouth slid up. "This is the part where you tell me I'm stewing unnecessarily."

"See? You're learning." She pillowed her head on her forearms. The stone floor was cool through the blankets, and she wished she could damn propriety to the winds and curl herself around Valen. "I'm already missing sleeping in a real bed."

"Isn't it all part of the glory of adventuring?"

"Yes, along with mud soup and constantly wet feet. Funny how all those ballads only ever mention killing the monster and making off with all its loot."

***

Imloth tipped his head back against the wall and listened to the sounds of the darkness. Years ago, a teacher of his had called it _almost-silence_, the layers of noise that a drow scout noted and filed away as _unthreatening_. The Seer's even breathing, where she lay coiled near his feet. Deekin's wings rustling as he turned over. Blankets shifting, and a low, wordless sigh that sounded like Valen.

It would be some days before Lith My'athar, he knew, and yet he could not quell the unease that stiffened his shoulders. The Seer had reassured him that whatever they found, they would somehow triumph, but he disliked the uncertainty, the ignorance. _Nathyrra's position as Matron Mother is threatened…_but what did that _mean?_

_Perhaps we should never have stayed at The Yawning Portal. Perhaps we should have returned, to help. Whatever happened to duty? _

But the surface with its sunrises and proper night-times and the flooding, beautiful fall of the moonlight had been so tempting. And the Seer had wanted to stay, to devote herself to her prayers to Eilistraee up in the moonlight, away from the Underdark. _And you would have left, would you? Left her alone, and ventured back down on your own? Left her, knowing how you feel about her?_

"You have a crease in your forehead that I can see from here," the Seer said, softly.

He jumped guiltily. "I'm sorry."

She extricated herself from the blankets, sat beside him. "You need apologise for nothing, Imloth."

He sat wordlessly for a long moment, before finally murmuring, "I'm worried."

"I know. You fear we will not reach Lith My'athar in time?"

"Yes. And I fear…" There was little to be gained by staying evasive, so he gritted his teeth, and finished, "I wish we knew more. I don't like the idea of fighting something I know nothing about." He searched her face, thought he saw something buried beneath that serene mask. "Will we get through to the city? Or will we be attacked?"

"I don't know that," she said, softly. "I would prefer to believe that since I know of Nathyrra's predicament, we will make it through."

He laughed, short and clipped. "Only you would be able to tell that to her face and live."

"Tell her what?"

"That she's in a predicament." He reached out, clasped one of her hands between both of his. "I'm sorry. I do not mean to doubt you."

"I have told you of nothing but terrible danger, and my own ignorance." A thread of acerbic humour ran through her voice. "At this point, I believe I am rather doubting of myself."

"I do not entirely believe that. You are too determined and too resolute for such a thing."

She chuckled, softly. "You have too much faith in me, I sometimes think."

"Should I not?" He lifted her knuckles to his mouth. "You made and kept that city."

"Which is why I will _not_ see it fall now," she said, fiercely. "Not through treachery, or some outside attack, or through my own failings."

Imloth kissed her palm. "And after?"

"After?" Her pale eyes flickered. "I…do not know. It may be that I will have to stay there. If that happens…"

He heard the uncertain, cautious note in her voice. "If that happens, I will stay with you," he told her firmly.

"You will not miss the surface?"

"The surface is pretty, and its sunrises are prettier. I care more for you than for such things, though, so it is you I would prefer to see." He lifted her hand to his lips again, and thought he felt fine tremors running through her. "I will stay with you for as long as you want me."

***

Nathyrra twisted her wrists again, and angrily discovered that yes, the rope was as tight and as unforgiving the last time she had wrenched at it. The other length wrapped around her ankles was just as taut, but she supposed she should be grateful that Erelaer had not resorted to chains yet. Her weapons were gone, all of them, even the wafer-thin dagger she kept strapped to the inside of her calf, even the small-bladed knife usually hidden behind the cuff of one sleeve. She was hungry, and her shoulders ached, but the slow, buried burn of fury was worse, coiling low in her belly.

Flanked by guards, Erelaer sat perched opposite her, her hands toying with one of Nathyrra's daggers, and her mouth curved in a slight smile.

"He's still alive, you know," Erelaer said, softly. "At least, he was, the last time I looked."

Nathyrra sank her teeth into her lower lip. A dozen venomous replies sprang into her mind, but she knew there would be little gained from snarling and snapping. To bide and wait and earn vengeance – was that always what she had been taught? That the slower, more thoughtful revenge was the best, and usually the one more likely to ensure her own survival.

_Revenge is not the issue here,_ she thought. _Living and keeping this city safe is. _

"Do you think," Erelaer mused, "That perhaps the bait is not as tempting as it could be?"

"You _want_ to be overrun, is that it?" Nathyrra summoned her most vicious smile. "Surely you do not think these things would stop at the gates, with a single offering?"

"You would prefer I have him killed now, more a blood sacrifice than bait?"

"As you wish it," Nathyrra said. Her tone stayed cold and measured, but she was aware of her heartbeat, thundering and wild. "For all I know, this city is doomed in any case. The blood of a single male will neither hasten nor slow that happening, I think."

Erelaer's gaze sharpened. "You would let him die, your favourite, your pet? When you have conspired and schemed to keep him away from any…undesired attention?"

Nathyrra shrugged. "My friend, my hands and ankles are tied. I am unarmed. I am very, very tired. I am in no position to _let_ anyone live or die."

Erelaer laughed. "Honesty, Matron Mother, and from your own mouth. You surprise me still. Stand."

Some buried part of her balked at the offhand command, but she swayed up to her feet. An old assassin's trick, to let the feet drag and the shoulders stoop. She doubted the cleric would be truly fooled, but still, a little subterfuge might not go amiss. _Like you'll get the chance, _some scornful thought prompted. _If the gates are rushed, they'll leave you die bound and trapped, or else knife you first. _

Erelaer caught her shoulder, steadied her. "Can you walk?"

"Yes. Your guard was rather thorough with the knots, though." It was an ungainly, shuffling kind of walk, one that made her bristle at the indignity of it. She was a Red Sister, an assassin born and bred, a Matron Mother in her own right, and this treacherous bitch of a cleric had her outflanked, leashed, and _leaning_ on her.

A short, stumbling walk took her over the gates, and then to the crenellations on the other side. Erelaer grasped her arm and shoulder, propped her up while she leaned out.

She had seen such punishments before, but still, her stomach lurched horribly. Andaryn was strung up against the gates, arms above his head and wrists lashed together. Above him, the ropes stretched through heavy iron rings. His legs were tied as well, and spread apart. He was breathing, shallow and quick, and his face was half-covered by the thick fall of his hair.

"He's still alive," she muttered.

Erelaer pulled her back from the wall. "Yes, Matron Mother. For now."

"And is it your preference to keep him alive?"

"Yes."

"Then you'll need to let him down." Over the cleric's sudden scowl, she added, "We may be attacked now, tomorrow, or in some four dozen days' time. If you want him to stay alive, you have to let him down. You'll need to give him water, and food, and let him walk a little, before putting him back up."

"You speak with such authority." Erelaer smiled. "I will consider your suggestion."

_You'll have to, or he'll die too soon,_ she thought raggedly. She had seen many enemies of her mother and sisters, strung up to wait for death, or else racked until they screamed, or flogged almost lifeless, then pinned to stone walls until they bled out. Keeping a prisoner alive was far more difficult, and she wondered how long he might last. She knew the sheer strain placed on bones and joints was punishing, and how simply breathing became an ordeal, with the arms stretched up and the whole bodyweight pushing down onto the heels.

But she had _saved_ him, had kept him alive and she was damned if Erelaer's treachery was going to see him dead.

_But you have no choices, and your only hope is to wait for the Seer. _

If_ she's even coming. _

"Matron Mother?" Erelaer arched a white eyebrow. "I _said_, I will feed him, _if_ he tries nothing stupid."

Nathyrra nodded slowly. "And…?"

"If he does?" Erelaer's smile widened. "Then I will open his throat, and he can bleed on the gates in a pretty red welcome."

***

Underfoot, the stone floor was rubbed smooth with age, the edges of steps worn soft and curved. Jaiyan followed them down, her eyes on the back of Imloth's head, while Valen flanked her. Another day's walking had taken them deeper into the spiraling passageways of Undermountain, and past the high cavern where she had once met Nathyrra. It seemed so strangely long ago, and she remembered how her heart had nearly burst through her ribs when the drow had melted out of the shadows, and declared herself an ally.

Imloth stiffened, held up a hand.

Jaiyan's own hand flew to her sword. She looked past his shoulder, saw nothing breaking the flickering magelight. Still, his ears were far sharper, and when she glanced at Valen, he was scanning the darkness, his face terse. "What do you hear?"

"Footsteps," he answered. "Running. Be ready." He listened a moment longer, and frowned. "He's on his own, whoever he is."

Which was odd, she knew, for who would voluntarily blunder through these caves, and so loudly? Drow war parties moved frighteningly quietly, and besides, who would want to hurtle up to Undermountain?

Up ahead, Imloth unslung his bow. He nocked an arrow swiftly, aimed at where the steps descended down into darkness. Jaiyan edged past Valen, peered down, and frustratingly saw nothing moving. Listening, she _thought_ she heard footsteps, fast and light and closing.

A shadow swooped around the corner below, and Imloth fired. Somewhere behind, Jaiyan heard the Seer call out a warning to be patient, and careful. The arrow clanged off the wall, and the footsteps scrabbled madly against stone. A voice followed, calling something in drow, hesitant and tired-sounding.

Jaiyan gripped her sword hilt, exchanged a worried look with Valen. What would a drow be doing on his own? _Unless he's the bait for a war party's ambush_, she thought cynically.

Imloth lined up another arrow. "Step into the light." He pulled the string taut. "Into the light. Now."

Hands held palm-up, a drow male emerged from the shadows. He was thin, Jaiyan noticed first, too thin, his leathers hanging on a worn frame. His hair was braided back off his face, matted and sticky-looking and crimsoned on one side. Another, startled look at him showed her that he was injured, walking oddly, and the red eyes he turned on Imloth were half relieved, half exhausted. "Commander Imloth..?"

The bow slackened in Imloth's hands. "Rhylnar? That's…you're Rhylnar?"

The Seer hurried past him, caught the drow when he swayed, steadied him. "You're injured," she said. "And badly."

"Mother Seer?" Something very like wonder smoked through the drow's voice. "You're here?"

"You need to sit," she said, firmly. "Sit, and I can heal you."

"No, wait." His hands clenched around hers. "I've…I was sent from Lith My'athar. I needed to…find you."

Imloth caught his other arm. "Sit down. You can talk later."

"No, no time." Rhylnar gulped down a shivering breath. "Lith My'athar is in danger. Nathyrra…Matron Mother Nathyrra needs you."

"I know," the Seer murmured. Very gently, she pried his fingers off hers. "Come with me. You need rest, and you need food, and healing."

Watching, Jaiyan swallowed. The drow was shaking, and there was a scared, hollow look in his face that unnerved her. While the Seer sat him down properly, and Imloth joined them, she found Valen's hand. "He looks terrible," she whispered.

Valen nodded. "He's a scout, one of the fastest."

"You know him?"

"He was at Lith My'athar when I arrived there."

Further down, the corridor leveled out. Past a dozen high pillars, the walls opened onto an empty, dust-coated chamber. While Deekin sang up a fire, and Dakesh prowled, glaring into the darkness, the Seer made the injured scout sit. His eyes were flickering, jumping, and when she touched his arm, he flinched violently.

"Sit still," the Seer said. She did not let go, only waited until he settled. "You are safe. You are with friends." When his eyes rolled again, she finished, "You remember Valen, don't you?"

Rhylnar nodded. "Yes. I…yes. I remember…you had no sympathy for me when I arrived for sword drill, somewhat worse for wear one morning."

Valen grinned. "Two bottles of wine will do that to you, my friend."

The Seer carefully tugged the scout's gloves off. Beneath, his knuckles were swollen, and when she went to pull his leathers away, he hissed. "Let me," she said, still quiet. "You need healing, and then you can sleep."

His eyes darted restlessly. "No, I…Mother Seer, why are you here?"

"I had a vision. I know why you are here…why you left Lith My'athar."

He laughed then, a desperate, gulping sound. "When I left…Mother Seer, Nathyrra is…in danger. She…she let a stranger into the city. He…brought something with him."

"Sshh. You can tell me later." The Seer worked his leathers off, revealing deep gashes along both shoulders. Another tracked past his collarbone, deep and welling. The wounds looked puffy and infected, as if he had not had the time to clean them properly. "Now, stay still. I need to heal you."

Jaiyan felt Valen's hands on her shoulders, let him steer her towards the fire. Deekin was bustling with bowls and water, and muttering something about maybe making a hot stew. She dropped her swordbelt, curled up against Valen, and tried not to think about what they might find at Lith My'athar. Nearby, white light glowed, and she heard the drow scout gasp, and the Seer reassure him, that it would all be alright.

"You look far too thoughtful."

She leaned against Valen's chest, realised he had not taken his armour off, and pulled away slightly. "Your breastplate is hard. And cold."

He laughed. "Can you ever forgive me?"

"Hmm. I'll try."

He unsnapped the clasps, heaved it away, peeled the underpadding off. "You're worried."

"Oh, I'm that easy to read, am I?" She scowled, but without much enthusiasm. "Yes, I…I thought we knew what we might be getting ourselves into. Now I'm not so sure."

"I know what you mean." He hooked an arm around her waist, tugged her closer. "I…trust the Seer, though."

"I know." Jaiyan bit her lip. _You'd walk through fire for her,_ she thought, a little ungraciously. "I just…I would prefer to know a little more. I feel like we're marching in blind."

"I know." He found the end of her braid, stroked absently. "I'll be with you. I will protect you."

"I know you will." She smirked up at him. "You're my personal walking shield."

"Oh, I knew that." Valen leaned down, kissed her forehead. "I was wondering…after this, when we get back up to the surface, I was wondering if…"

"…we could lock the door and make love until I can't walk?"

Valen winced. "Oh, my gods above. Well, yes, but…I was wondering if you…might like it if I bought you another dress."

"Really?" The other one, the blue one from Sigil - she supposed it must have been lost or destroyed along with most of their things. Azraleth had kept their weapons and Valen's armour as trophies, and while escaping alive was probably much better than the alternative, she suddenly realize that it _stung_. "I'd…like that, actually."

"You would?"

"Don't laugh." She picked up his hand, turned it over, felt the hard lines of muscles and old scars.

"I'm not," Valen said, quietly. "I…would like that as well."

"Good." She kissed the back of his knuckles, and almost avoided his gaze. "I think…blue would suit me best, yes?"

"Oh, yes."

"Good." She looked up, into those very blue eyes, and smiled. "Then all we need to do is figure out what's going on in Lith My'athar, who needs a decent smacking, and how best to give it to them."


	31. Chapter 31

_**Chapter Thirty-One: The Assassin and the Cleric**_

Jaiyan scraped up the last spoonful of gravy and looked across at the drow scout again. He had spoken little, and eaten slowly, while the Seer sat beside him. His cheeks were hollow, and every time the small fire snapped, he flinched. She could not quite remember if she had met him properly before, but he had smiled slightly and nodded when the Seer explained who she was.

"What attacked you?" the Seer asked, softly.

Rhylgar's hands twisted together. "I don't know. Something…something that moved fast. I couldn't see it. Them. It."

"Couldn't see it?" Imloth frowned. "Was magic involved?"

"I don't know. If there was, I couldn't tell."

"Rhylgar," the Seer said. "The air…what did it smell like?"

"When I was attacked?" His forehead creased. "Old. Rotten. Like a battlefield a day after the fighting stops."

Imloth rubbed a hand through his hair. "What can shield itself?"

"What can shield itself, and yet leave no trace of any spell, is perhaps the more disturbing question." The Seer sighed. "Something that cannot be seen…Rhylgar, I need to ask you…something that may be difficult to speak of."

The scout nodded silently.

"Tell me about the attack."

"I was running." Rhylgar stared at the fire, his eyes deep and dark and troubled. "I'd been ordered to get through Undermountain and to the surface, as quickly as possible. The first time, it happened in a ravine. Close walls, nowhere to run. I think there was only one. It…must have dropped down from somewhere above."

"Did you hear anything?" Imloth asked.

"No. Nothing at all. It dropped on top of me, and it raked my shoulders open before I even hit the ground."

Watching him, Jaiyan swallowed. His voice was steady, but the fingers locked over his knees were shaking.

"I kicked it off me, and kept running. There was nothing behind me. Nothing above me." Rhylgar shook his head slowly. "I didn't…I wondered if I'd dreamed it."

"And the second time?" the Seer queried.

"The path that runs up to Undermountain, past the pillars…it happened there. It was the same – no noise that I noticed, no warning. Only that smell in the air. And just…something hitting me in the chest and knocking me over." He sucked down a long, uneven breath. "That time, I lashed out, and I think I hit one of them."

Imloth frowned. "How did you know?"

"It felt different. First my sword went through air, then…something else. Something that didn't feel like flesh. More like…have you ever dragged a blade through water?"

Imloth nodded slowly. "Did it bleed?"

"I don't know." Rhylgar's crimson eyes flickered. "I…didn't stop to look. But there was no blood on my sword, afterwards."

"No more attacks?"

"No, Commander. I kicked it off me, that second time, and swung at it. Then I just ran. I didn't…" He scowled. "I needed to get through."

"It's alright," Imloth said, softly. "I understand. You did well."

"You need to sleep," the Seer suggested. "You've lost a lot of blood."

"No!" Panic flared through the scout's voice. "No…we need to go. Now. There's no time."

"Very well." The Seer nodded slowly and looked across to Imloth. "You will lead?"

"Yes," he answered. "Rhylgar, I want you in the middle with the Seer and Jaiyan. Valen, you and Dakesh will be at the back."

Dakesh grinned. "I promise to scream loudly if I get torn in half by something I can't see."

"What about Deekin? Did drow commander _forget_ about Deekin?"

Jaiyan grinned. "You're with me."

***

High rock walls rose on both sides, slick with water, and sliding up into impenetrable darkness. Jaiyan walked carefully, brutally aware of the sound of each footstep. Ahead of her, the drow moved almost soundlessly, and with enviable grace. Since crossing into the Underdark proper, they had not spoken, and Jaiyan had discovered that she was tense all over. She had little to look at save the back of the Seer's head, and her thoughts kept wandering back to Rhylgar, and the quiet, coiled desperation in his eyes.

_And enemies that you can't see…how's that ever going to be easy? How do you even know where to hit? _

She gripped her sword hilt and forced her breathing steadier. A small, dry hand wrapped around her wrist, and she looked down into Deekin's wide black eyes. Imloth had ordered silence, so she just smiled and nodded.

Deekin squeezed her wrist, and nodded back.

Hours slipped by while they marched, slowly, and painfully silently. Jaiyan wondered if this was what it was like for drow scouts, gliding swiftly through the darkness. She was very aware of the sloping walls on either side, lit by Deekin's tiny magelight, and of her own breathing, and of Valen's wordless presence, behind her.

Ahead, the rock walls opened, and she could just make out the edge of huge stalactites, knifing down towards flat ground. Some vague memory stirred, of how the area ahead led through another canyon and eventually through high rock chimneys. _Which should get us through to Lith My'athar_, she thought. _Not far. Unless you've remembered completely wrong. _

Imloth paused, held up one hand. She squinted past his narrow shoulder, saw nothing. She wanted to keep moving, keep walking, but he stepped forward alone. With one hand on his sword hilt, and his head tilted to one side, he reached the corner of the ravine. For a long moment, he stared out into the darkness.

The skin between Jaiyan's shoulders prickled. She glared up, but the flickering shadows above revealed little past the sweep of damp rock.

She took a hesitant step forward, but Imloth shook his head furiously. The Seer turned, grasped her hand. Leaning in close, the drow whispered, "Jaiyan, draw your sword. Slowly. Quietly."

Every nerve in her screamed at her to bolt. The darkness was close, too close, and Deekin's magelight seemed too tiny. She dragged down a hasty breath, reminded herself that she had been in the Underdark before, and obeyed. Imloth was still poised at the corner, and Jaiyan wanted to demand why, wanted to order him off and moving and towards Lith My'athar.

_Too quiet_, she thought. _Even the Underdark is full of sounds. Soft sounds, subtle sounds, but this is…not right. _

She glanced past the Seer, and saw that Rhylgar was rigid, his chest jerking with fast, shallow breaths. She opened her mouth to snap something at the Seer, and _tasted_ it. Dragging thick and damp over her tongue, the air was rotten. _Like a battlefield a day after the fighting stops, _Rhylgar had said.

"Jaiyan! Move, now!" Valen, shouting roughly. His hand came down on her shoulder, yanking her to one side.

Something ripped past her face, half-unseen and whisper-quiet. She spun, sword held low, and gazed desperately at the darkness. _Nothing, can't see anything, how can I..? _Somewhere behind, she heard Dakesh swearing, and then the whistling sound of Devil's Bane, cutting through empty air. Deekin shrieked, and some bright spell sizzled.

Valen grabbed her arm again, heaved her away from the rock wall. "Stay right beside me!"

"I can't see anything," she snarled back at him.

"Stay there!"

Devil's Bane whipped over her head, bit into the stone. She turned, and the air against her skin seemed to shift, to move. Instinctively, she brought her sword up, lashed out. Something heavy slammed into her shoulder, driving her back against the rock wall. She swore, whirled around, and lunged. Her blade drove into something, something heavy and dragging and very unlike flesh. _But that's what Rhylgar said, wasn't it, that they feel…odd. _

But she had no time to think about it, and when her sword tore free, she staggered. Something thick and dark clung to the blade. Overhead, the air rushed and screamed. The next attack caught her right shoulder, spun her around. Pain erupted along her side, and she was shoved against the stone. She kicked back wildly, felt her heel connect. Close by, she heard Valen scream her name. A quick, follow-up punch with her elbow smacked into something solid. She turned, struck out at _nothing_, and felt her blade snag. The air roared past her ear, and sharp talons sank into her side again.

White light cracked out from the Seer's hands. Half-blinded, Jaiyan stumbled away. The pain was insistent, digging in just below her ribs, and she could feel the hot spread of blood.

Another spell followed, harsh and bright and searing. Eyes narrowed, she _thought_ she could see something moving behind the blaze of energy. A third spell rang out, and the air stilled.

Jaiyan blinked slowly, hand still wrapped around her sword hilt. She turned slowly, and almost flinched when Valen caught her hands. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." She shifted, and winced. "I'll be fine."

"You're hurt."

"Well, I'm sorry, but I couldn't _see_ the damn thing." She leaned on him, and gasped when he touched the wound. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," he said, tersely. "Seer?"

"I'm here." The drow stepped in front of her. "Your side?"

"Yes." She tried to straighten up, and gulped when her vision swam alarmingly. "They were…sharp. Whatever they were." _Like daggers, _she thought. _Perfectly kept and polished daggers, and you can't see where they come from. _

The Seer trailed a hand across the tear in her leathers. "Hold still."

The familiar, hot sensation of the healing spell followed, along with the Seer's reassurance that she would not scar. While the drow woman melted past her, heading for Imloth, she leaned into Valen's embrace again. "I'm fine, really."

"I'm allowed to worry," he said. He kissed her, softly. "About this, at least."

"Could you see them?"

"No," he answered. "Not really. I could…see where they _were_, if that makes any sense."

She nodded. "I think so. I felt…I slashed at least one of them."

"Deekin _think_ he see something." The little kobold frowned. "It be like…watching water move."

Jaiyan crouched down. "You're not hurt?"

"Nope. Deekin surviving." His frown deepened. "But Deekin wonders why Deekin not really attacked. Maybe because Deekin be so small."

"We need to move," Imloth said, crisp and cool. "Valen? You're alright?"

"Yes."

"So am I, and thank you for caring enough to ask," Dakesh added acidly. "You've never come across anything like this?"

"No. Never." Imloth sheathed his sword with a sharp ring of metal. "We have little time. Lith My'athar is not far, and I don't fancy our chances with another encounter."

***

Nathyrra glared down at her bound wrists and wondered again if she could make the distance across the walkway to where Erelaer perched. _Maybe_, she thought. _And then maybe you could get your arms around her neck, and just pull. Maybe. _She growled under her breath and tried to banish such thoughts. _Even your mother wouldn't approve of _that_ course of action. You'd make it across, maybe, and then get three daggers in your spine. _

The day had crawled past, agonizingly slowly, and each sting of sweat against her eyes was wearing at her patience. _How long was she going to wait it out? _But Erelaer showed no signs of irritation, feigned or otherwise. She had even ordered a plate of bread and cold meat brought, along with a flagon of cold wine, and Nathyrra had simmered through the indignity of letting the cleric feed her.

Afterwards, half a dozen guards had accompanied them to the gates, where Andaryn was let down. _He'd look so wrung through_, Nathyrra thought. Worn out, and shaking on his feet when they propped him up and made him eat. Still, he had finished the bread and emptied the waterskin, and had even managed to snap something vicious about backstabbing female traitors. In answer, Erelaer had only smiled, and nodded to her soldiers, and they had strung him back up, tight enough that Nathyrra could see the corded tendons along his arms.

"You were born in Menzoberranzan, Matron Mother, yes?"

"Yes."

Erelaer smiled. "Does House Kant'tar still retain its power?"

"How should I know?" Nathyrra summoned a venomous grin. "I haven't been back there in rather a long while. You're welcome to see on my behalf, though, if you wish it."

"You trained with the Red Sisters, yes?"

"Yes. This is not some closely-guarded secret," Nathyrra said heavily. "Yes, I was a Red Sister. Please point me to the single drow in this city who does not know that."

"Oh, I don't wish to know your _secrets_, Matron Mother." Erelaer laced long, elegant fingers over one knee. "I am merely…making conversation."

Nathyrra kept her smile, and privately wondered how the cleric would have handled the Valsharess. _Not helpful. Think of something else. _But her mind stayed absurdly blank, and all she could think of was the bite of the ropes at her wrists, and how Andaryn's eyes had narrowed, all fury and hatred, when his arms were heaved above his head again.

"Mistress?" Footsteps first, and then a guard, hair disheveled. "Mistress Erelaer?"

Nathyrra swallowed back a sharp retort, and stayed silent. The guard hurtled past, inclined his head, and mumbled, "Mistress, there is…movement. In front of the gates."

"What kind?"

"My sentries see three drow, and others with them."

"Others?" Erelaer's tone sharpened. "_What_ others?"

"We're not sure, Mistress." The guard's voice cracked, and Nathyrra understood why; he wanted to be told what to do, and how to do it. Too much stood still unknown, and she knew how rumours flew.

"Not sure?" Erelaer snarled.

She turned, glared out through the crenellations, and Nathyrra saw her face slacken. Sudden, wild hope broke through her, quickly quashed. _No, don't think of it, it could be nothing. _Even so, she was on her feet, and stumbling against the ropes at her ankles. A swift, searching look across the broad, dark plain showed her figures, running – _no, bolting, _she thought_, and they've no where else to go but here. _

Three drow, four others, and _Elistraee's blessings, that was the Seer_.

Nathyrra exhaled sharply. _If you can recognize her from here, so can Erelaer_. Her stomach gave another, strange flutter. The guard was moving, away from her, calling to the archers stationed along the walkway. _No, they wouldn't, she wouldn't, it's the _Seer_, they can't……_

Without thinking, Nathyrra launched herself at Erelaer. She cannoned into the cleric side-on, toppling her. A brutally precise knee to the gut left her winded and gasping. She hooked her wrists around the cleric's neck and wrenched. When Erelaer snarled, and thrashed, and jerked a hand down to her dagger, Nathyrra whispered, "Stop moving, or I'll choke you before they can shoot me. Stop moving. Now."

Erelaer sagged against her. "You saw her."

"Of course I saw her." Nathyrra twisted her hands together beneath the cleric's neck and tugged. "Now order your soldiers to stand down or you'll be upon Eilistraee's mercy before you can breathe again."

The cleric twisted, snapping one shoulder back against Nathyrra. Her heel launched up, caught against Nathyrra's belt. Another vicious heave, and she was spun against the crenellations. Somewhere close, bowstrings cranked taut. Erelaer's shoulder was beneath her chin, and the cleric's frame was lean and surprisingly strong, pushing her back against the wall. Nathyrra gritted her teeth, locked her arm around the cleric's throat. Erelaer wrenched, and Nathyrra heard the dagger snick free of its sheath.

_No time,_ she thought desperately. _There's no time. _

She slammed her knee against the cleric's side. Heaving hard enough that every muscle in her shoulders screamed, she pulled them both away from the wall. A sweeping kick took Erelaer's ankles out from under her, and she toppled. Nathyrra let the impetus carry her down as well, until her knees were either side of the cleric. "Don't move," she snapped into the other drow's ear. "Don't _think_ about moving. Call your soldiers off."

Erelaer lifted her head. Sweat tracked down her temples in thick runnels. "Stand down! Stand down, all of you."

The nearest guard swiveled. "But, Mistress…"

"It's the Seer," Nathyrra growled. "Now drop that bow, male."

The string relaxed, and he nodded.

"Now get down to that gate," Nathyrra said. "And open it, and _let them in_."

The guard hesitated an instant longer, his crimson eyes flickering down to Erelaer. Nathyrra dug her arm under the cleric's chin, felt her stiffen.

"Do it," Erelaer snapped. "Now."

Nathyrra pushed up to her feet, swaying through an awkward moment when the cleric stumbled. Biting down on an obscenity, she dragged the cleric upright. "Drop the dagger, and I'll let you go."

Wordlessly, the cleric obeyed. Nathyrra unhooked her arms from around the female's neck. "Call one of your soldiers. I want these ropes off."

Erelaer motioned the guard closer. "Cut her free."

Nathyrra froze through a wary, worrying heartbeat while the guard's knife flashed above her wrists. But the blade only sawed through the ropes, and she could not quite suppress a sudden, exhilarated thrill. _But there's still two dozen confused guards up here, and do you really think Erelaer is going to go quietly? _

She needed the gate open, and fast. She scooped up the fallen dagger, smirked over the tip at Erelaer. She was tempted to add something vicious about revenge, and reaching too far, but she supposed there was little point. Instead, she grasped the cleric's shoulder, spun her around. Forcibly walked her down the steps, and to where three guards were wrestling with the gates.

They eyed her warily, sidelong and dubious, as she prodded the cleric forward. The same tense uncertainty she had seen in so many of her mother's soldiers, those terrible days when blood was spilled within their house walls. They were waiting, she knew, waiting to see an outcome, any outcome, that might provide some semblance of stability. _One day's traitor is another day's hero_, her mother had once observed. _Sometimes the absence of blood is as much a victory as anything. _

She had learned that the truth of those words had less to do with keeping peace and more to do with forcing authority as soon as possible. _And that as a daughter of House Kant'tar, no less was expected._

Nathyrra battened down such thoughts, which were useless right now, and distracting. _This has nothing to do with House Kant'tar, and the past. This has to do with Lith My'athar, and the Seer, and the safety of those who would prefer Eilistraee. _

She dug the tip of the dagger into the small of Erelaer's back, steered her through the gates. To her left, Andaryn still hung, his chest moving too fast, and his eyes half-closed. She glared at one of the guards, and said, "Get him down. _Now_."

She waited, simmering, while they clumsily slashed the ropes at his ankles, while one of them hoisted himself up to chop through the binds that looped up through the hooks above him. Andaryn dropped, hit the ground bonelessly, and Nathyrra realised he must have blacked out. His hands were curled and motionless, but each shallow breath stirred the loose tumble of his hair. _No time_, she thought. _He's still alive. Check on him later. _

She allowed herself to look past Erelaer's shoulder, across the wide plain, and her heart gave a strange, bursting leap. She noticed the Seer first, clad in leathers, and moving with fast, quiet grace as she ran. Beside her was Rhylgar, the scout, and Imloth.

Her grip tightened on the dagger hilt, and she risked a quick glance behind. The guards were still and silent, bows hanging loose, but she knew how fast drow soldiers could aim and fire. _It's the Seer…they wouldn't. Surely they wouldn't. _

She gritted her teeth, and made herself look behind the Seer. _Others…they said there were others_. Her gaze fell first on a tall, muscled shape, with startlingly bright hair, and she grinned. _Valen. Valen and Jaiyan, and that kobold of theirs. _Following them was a tall figure, lean and dark-haired and pale, one hand around the hilt of a slim-bladed sword. But they were closing on the gates, and she had no time to speculate. Viciously, she kicked the back of Erelaer's knees, let her fall. The dagger juddered against her side, and she wrapped her free arm around the other female's throat.

"Nathyrra." The Seer's voice, calm and measured and cutting through her jumbled thoughts. "Nathyrra. We're here."

She wondered what the Seer must think, seeing the guards milling on the walls, seeing Andaryn, seeing such obvious treachery. "Seer, I…"

A white, fluttering corona coiled around the Seer's hand. "Nathyrra. You must tell me…what is happening? What has happened?"

_Treachery,_ she thought. _What was never supposed to happen, not here. _

Her gaze was pinned on the Seer, on the way the pale light snarled around her fingers. _It's pretty, so pretty, and why isn't she doing anything..? _

Erelaer twisted against her. One elbow drove into Nathyrra's ribs. The dagger point skittered, sketching through cloth and into skin. Erelaer's foot smacked against the inside of her knee, and she swayed horribly. Through the exhausted pounding in her head, she heard the Seer's voice, and Jaiyan's, demanding to know what the hells was going on. The whine of an unleashed spell hurt her ears, and Erelaer was slammed back against her.

Almost without thinking, Nathyrra responded. Tightening her grip on the dagger, she pulled Erelaer's thrashing, resisting frame against her own. In one practiced, swift motion, she drew the dagger across the cleric's throat. Hot blood gushed across her hands, and she held on through the last, gasping moments. As efficient, she let the cleric fold at the knees, and flicked blood off the dagger.

The spell winked out, leaving blessed darkness, and her own thoughts, swarming in her head. _You just killed a cleric of Eilistraee in front of her, and how is that merciful? _She tried to take a step, tried to make her mouth move properly.

Hands caught her, ebony and slender and known. "Seer, I…oh…"

"It's alright." Without censure, the Seer propped her up. "Nathyrra, I'm here. It's alright."

She leaned her forehead against the Seer's shoulder. As always, she smelled of clean skin and soap and incense. There was so much to be explained, so much to apologise for, but Nathyrra found that words failed her, that her lips felt heavy and tired. Somewhere close by, she heard Imloth as he asked about the drow on the ground.

_Andaryn_, she thought. _He means Andaryn._ "He's…make sure he's alright," she said, thickly. "He was breathing, but…"

"Hush," the Seer said, gently. "It's alright. We're here."

A tremor ran through her, bone-deep and tearing. "Seer, I am so sorry. I never meant for…when you left, I never meant…"

Somewhere close by, she heard Valen's voice, and Jaiyan's in reply. Not angry, only questioning, and Imloth answered, that such punishments were typical of drow, sometimes.

"Nathyrra." The Seer touched her hair, swept loose strands back from her sweat-sticky forehead. "We're here."


	32. Chapter 32

_Usual disclaimer applies - Bioware owns most of this, save a few original characters. Reviews are always welcome, and I hope everyone's had an enjoyable Christmas. _

_**Chapter Thirty-Two – Disquiet**_

On the walls, the guards still milled, uncertain. Standing braced and terse, Jaiyan did not loosen her grip on her sword hilt. Some of the drow moved, hands flying to bows, pulling strings taut and lining up clear shots. A single wrong motion, one misplaced word, and they would be dodging arrows, she knew. Beside her, Valen was coiled, and his tail lashed wildly.

Very gently, the Seer touched Nathyrra's hair again, and whispered something in drow.

_Very nice_, Jaiyan thought sourly. _But we've got around two dozen nervous drow up there with bows, three at the gates, one flaked out on the ground, and a dead female still bleeding all over the place. _Someone needed to do _something_, and fast, before something stupid happened.

The Seer looked over Nathyrra's bowed shoulder, locked eyes with Imloth.

Sword unsheathed, Imloth prowled closer to the gates, stood easily within range of the archers above. Watching, Jaiyan could not quite suppress a prickle of unease. The sensible part of her mind told her she was worrying foolishly, that he was their commander, and had probably whipped most of them into shape more than once on the practice fields. _But that was back when the target was obvious and named and lived in a fortress that could be attacked_, she thought. _That was back when being a rebel drow meant having something and someone to rebel _against_. _

Imloth paused, and his gaze raked along the walls. "Lower your weapons." Sudden, apprehensive movement swept through the guards. Directly over the gates, a male guard drew his bowstring to his jaw.

"Don't," Imloth said, quietly. "Lower your bows. All of you."

Silence answered him. Jaiyan risked a quick look at Valen, saw that his face was a pale, hard mask. His hand was tight on Devil's Bane, and she recognized the rigid set to his shoulders. He was preparing to launch himself at Imloth, to drag the drow away if – _when_, she thought, _when_ – the guards fired.

"Do you think to defy me? To defy the Seer?" Imloth's voice rose and sharpened. "To defy the _Seer_, who led you to freedom, gave you this place as sanctuary, and spoke the prophecy that foresaw the downfall of the Valsharess?" He lowered his sword. "You would draw weapons on the Seer, who has done _nothing_ but see this city and its people safe?"

Imloth spun on his heel, glared up at the guard perched over the gates. "I know you, Caldrin. You arrived in this place many months ago, before the Valsharess fell. You came here shaking and afraid, and I trained you how to use a bow properly." Pointedly, Imloth sheathed his sword. "And you, Haeleth. I know you. Do I have to name you all?"

On the walkway, one of the guards dropped his bow. Others shifted, looking at each other, and Jaiyan heard them muttering.

"Lower your weapons," Imloth snapped. "I won't ask again."

Standing awkwardly by the gate, a male drow ducked his head. "Commander Imloth," he said, slightly strained. "It is…good to see you again."

"Kelagh," Imloth responded. "You stood at the Valsharess' fortress, and came up to Waterdeep with us. How fares Lith My'athar?"

"Not well," the drow said. He lifted his hands up, held them palm-out and trembling. "We did not…I mean…"

"Send a runner up to the walls," Imloth ordered. "I want every archer up there unarmed and nowhere near weapons."

"Yes, Commander."

"And call a council meeting in the temple. I trust it is still dedicated to Eilistraee?"

The drow flinched. "Yes, Commander."

Watching them, Jaiyan exhaled slowly. She wanted to lean against Valen, or at least tell Imloth that she was impressed that he did not resemble a pincushion. But it was still a performance, a show of power, she understood. So when Nathyrra murmured something, she did not move, only observed as Imloth knelt beside the unconscious drow male.

Imloth reached out, touched the other male's shoulder, gently lifted him. His head lolled, and crimson eyes fluttered open. He snapped away from Imloth, perhaps instinctively, and snarled, "Don't touch me."

Imloth rocked back on his heels. "We're with Nathyrra. We're with the Seer."

The drow smirked. "Come to save us all? Your timing could have been better, I must say."

"Feel free to complain later." Imloth grasped his wrist, hauled him upright. "Can you walk?"

The drow shook Imloth's hand away. "I can walk."

Regarding him, Jaiyan saw the careful way he held himself. Despite the defiant tilt of his head, she realized that he had been hurt, and recently; he balanced his weight gingerly, and the instant Imloth's gaze swung away, he lost his smirk.

Imloth led, striding under the gates, keeping his hands away from his sword hilt. Trailing after the Seer and Nathyrra, with Valen towering reassuringly beside her, Jaiyan chewed at her lower lip. The gatehouse slid overhead, and the ground smoothed underfoot, and then they were crossing the wide, open space behind the walls. The market was off to one side, she knew, the tavern and the forge to the other, and she remembered the way to the temple. But the stillness was new, along with the ranks of wordless soldiers watching them from the walls. A sidelong glance showed her more drow, all armed, watching from doorways, or else leaning against walls. She recalled crossing the same stone, months ago, and hearing the rhythmic noise of hammer on anvil in the forge, or the running feet of scouts sprinting to the gate, or the rattle of bows at the practice fields.

Even after the attack, even after the temple had crumbled, and the gates had burned, the city had never been this silent, this _unwelcoming_. Jaiyan swallowed, sidled closer to Valen. His tail brushed against the back of her legs, and she managed a slight smile.

At the temple doors, ten drow stood waiting. She vaguely recognized some of them, remembered perhaps passing them in the tavern, or the armoury.

The Seer stopped, lifted her head, and said nothing.

Not far behind, Jaiyan shifted uncomfortably. _Usually, there'd be fighting already_, she thought. _Not this horrible…waiting. _Not that she fancied the messiness of attacking ten heavily armed drow, not while the entire city seemed to be listening, but the quiet, lingering apprehension made her skin itch.

"Mother Seer," one the drow said, softly. "You return."

"Indeed." Unblinking, the Seer's gaze swept across the assembled drow. "And it seems I return to treachery."

The drow smiled, all teeth. "What else is it called, when a Matron Mother puts too much trust in an outsider?"

"Eilistraee knows no outsiders, only those called to freedom."

"If his heart is given to Eilistraee, we have not been told. We have not seen it." The drow shrugged, and added, "Secrets beget trouble."

"And when a city stands threatened, its people should stay strong and loyal." The Seer's pale eyes flared. "Or would you see all this torn down, and by your own feuding?"

"You left," the drow snarled. Behind her, two soldiers slid their swords free. "Left when this place was in ruins, and for what? To see the surface? To entertain yourself with that broken male of yours?"

Imloth's shoulders went rigid. "Careful," he said, flat and unhurried. "Choose your words with care, Olortyr. I remember seeing you on your knees, pledging your soul to Eilistraee, and your sword to the Seer."

"An outsider comes to you, hurt and begging sanctuary. A patrol is slaughtered. Your own Matron Mother returns wounded." The Seer's voice was low, each word bitten off. "And the only response is treachery? To fight amongst yourselves? Should you not be more concerned with whatever it is that strikes unseen and seems to like the taste of drow blood?"

Olortyr's hand wrapped around her sword hilt. "What would you have us do, instead? These attacks started when _he_ arrived."

Andaryn's eyes narrowed venomously, and he opened his mouth. Before he could speak, the Seer said, "And your response was to hang him off the gates? Bleeding and exhausted, until he died? We are not torturers, Olortyr."

"It was not by _my_ order."

"No. But you let it happen. You, and every single one of you who mistrusted your own Matron Mother." The Seer drew in a slow, controlled breath. With her voice unwaveringly calm, she finished, "You will accompany us into the temple, you and all of the Matron Mother's councilors. There, we will discuss what our next step might be, and pray that your foolishness has not damned this city."

"A council meeting, is it? Very well." Olortyr inclined her head. "Yet you come with outsiders of your own, Mother Seer. I assume you will demand their presence. Surfacer friends, I take it?"

"You know Valen," the Seer said, implacable as drawn steel. "You should remember Deekin, and Jaiyan as the one who helped save us."

"And the other one?"

"Is with me, and is trusted." Her tone stayed hard, unequivocal. "Now, there is little time, and there is much to discuss. Open the temple doors."

****

Nathyrra locked her fingers together on the table and listened to the measured tones of the Seer's voice. With clipped, concise words, she explained how they had fared between Undermountain and Lith My'athar, how they had come upon Rhylgar, injured and afraid. How there had been an attack, close enough to the city to give even the Seer pause. _Breathe_, she thought. _The difficult part's over and done. Erelaer's dead, the Seer's with you, and you know the best tactic is generally just to let Valen throw himself at anything that snarls. _Still, she felt uneasy, and too aware of the sweat that coated her palms, so she dragged her gaze up, looked around the council chamber again. The tall swordsman had been introduced as Dakesh, a mercenary, and at first glance he had seemed something other than human. He was not hiding it, not quite, but his still poise and unkempt mop of very dark hair distracted from his strange pallor and the pointed shape of his ears.

Further down, Jaiyan leaned on one elbow, her face a perfect mask of bored disinterest. But Nathyrra remembered her, and how she had once spun around in the darkness, startled and wary. Quietly observing, she pushed back a slight smile; Valen's hip and arm were settled against Jaiyan's, and his tail was coiled around her waist. They remained together, it seemed, and Nathyrra realised she was curious. Where had they been, while she rebuilt the temple, and tried to forge herself a true position as Matron Mother? What had they seen on the world above, and how had they fared?

She surfaced from her thoughts, heard the Seer ask Andaryn for the truth.

"The truth?" He bared his teeth in a ragged grin. "_All_ of the truth?"

"All," the Seer said, quietly. "And quickly."

Nathyrra his whole frame tense, and part of her understood. Sometimes, the last shred of a secret might be all that kept away the threat of death, or torture, or worse. For a long moment, he held the Seer's gaze. Then, haltingly, he spoke, his words staggering and uncertain.

The expedition, Saerith, drow males staked out as unwitting bait at the behest of the Valsharess. Listening, she studied his face, noticed how his mouth trembled slightly. The same words he had once uttered to her followed, that these things were the spirits of something long fallen. That the Valsharess wanted them trapped and contained and taken back to her.

"Truly?" The Seer exchanged a quick look with Imloth. "She wanted them trapped? Or asked into an alliance, with your comrades as the bribe in blood?"

"I don't know. Saerith knew. From what I understand, she wanted them trapped."

"With what?"

"One of our wizards carried a box, heavily warded." He shrugged. "Does it matter?"

"An alliance suggests intelligence," Imloth remarked. "Trapped into slavery does not, not in quite the same way."

"What did the Valsharess want these things for?"

"I don't know. I'm just some lowly male who was sent to die." Andaryn smiled, coldly. "Power. To add to her collection, I don't know. The fact that they can tear through an armed scout group in a heartbeat is useful, I suppose."

"The place where you were attacked. Where your companions died." The Seer clasped long-fingered hands together. "What did it look like?"

"High stone walls. Thick darkness." His eyelashes flickered. "Bones."

"Bones?"

His head lifted, and his gaze found Nathyrra's, piercingly. "Tall, slender, white bones."

Imloth leaned back in his chair. "Can you find this place again?"

"If I had to."

"Oh, what?" Jaiyan lifted her chin off her hand. "You're not suggesting that. You have walls here, and soldiers, and weapons."

"Yes, and that might not be enough." Imloth's expression did not soften. "If you're attacked by a snake, do you flail at it, or go after its head?"

"You might consider hiding behind something solid until it goes away," the surfacer girl snapped in response.

"Enough," the Seer said, quietly. She looked past Andaryn, to where Olortyr stood braced. "Keep the guards at the gates. I want to know if anything changes. Send runners through the city. I want everyone aware that I am here, and aware that I will condone no more violence. Towards _anyone_ within the city walls." Clipped and concise, her tone was glacial. "And Commander Imloth will need a full inventory of available weapons, soldiers and scouts."

Olortyr nodded stiffly. "And Nathyrra?"

Something flashed in the Seer's eyes, something edged and dangerous. "Nathyrra remains your Matron Mother. Is that acceptable?"

"Of course, Mother Seer." Olortyr inclined her head again. "I will see to your wishes."

After the door clanged shut on Olortyr's heels, Jaiyan straightened up. Quite pointedly, she leaned both feet up on the table, considered a moment, and said, "Well. And I thought _we'd_ been having a bad time of it this past month or so."

Nathyrra smirked. "Spoil your day, did I?"

"No. The strange, not-quite-there things in the dark did that." She sighed. "If I go to the tavern, am I likely to get ambushed and skewered on the way?"

"Maybe," Nathyrra said. "Andaryn?"

With his hands fanned over the back of a chair, he froze. "Mistress?"

"Do you remember asking me who killed the Valsharess?"

He nodded, slowly. "Of course I do."

_You're enjoying this far too much_. "May I introduce the surfacer who opened the Valsharess' throat?"

Jaiyan snorted. "Is that some mark of honour or something now?"

Andaryn ran a searching, curious gaze over the surfacer girl, taking in the well-worn leathers and slim-bladed sword and the cocky, arched eyebrows. "Did she die well?"

"She died quickly."

"The great Valsharess, taken down by a surfacer." Andaryn sighed. "You know, I almost cared not to believe it, when I first heard it."

Jaiyan grinned viciously. "Don't worry. I'll be quite happy to tell you just how a feared Matron Mother sounds when she dies."

"Oh, no need, surfacer. I'll be sure to take your word for it."

Imloth leaned on the table beside her. "Were you joking about the tavern?"

"No. Why?"

"All of us staying holed up in here sends entirely the wrong message." Imloth tapped his sword hilt thoughtfully. "We are not strangers."

Jaiyan nodded slowly. "Alright. I hope, however, that you will be joining us. I don't want my last view of this world to be the inside of a tankard."

Imloth smiled. "And here you had me convinced that was your plan all along."

She groaned. "Oh. Very funny. You _know_ what I meant, drow. I don't want to be hoping for a drink and getting a dagger in the back instead. That kind of thing upsets a night at a tavern."

"You will need to be careful," the Seer said softly. "The city is…unquiet."

"And me?" Andaryn tipped his head to one side. "Where is my place?"

"Here," the Seer answered. "I need you and I need Nathyrra, and we still have much to speak of."

****

The tavern, Jaiyan reflected silently, seemed little changed. The air was still dense with smoke, and she thought she recognized the drow innkeeper. Her hands were wrapped around a tankard that still remained half-full. Valen sat beside her, his solid frame comforting and very close. Still, he had spoken little, and she wondered why. _Because this place was his home, his sanctuary, and it's taken very little to almost tear it apart?_ She let herself sink against his chest, and smiled when he absently kissed the top of her head.

Apparently oblivious to sidelong glances, Deekin was perched on the bar itself, and she could hear him mid-recitation. Opposite, the trapped innkeeper was nodding, a little desperately, and Jaiyan grinned. _Sometimes there's nothing like a full-on poetic assault from a kobold to ease the tension. _

Across the table, Dakesh swirled his wine cup and grinned. "Nice to see drow are still drow down here."

Jaiyan straightened up. "What do you mean?"

"Still backstabbing, torturing and betraying. Hanging people from gates and blaming everyone else." His smirk widened. "I thought between your Seer and her faithful lover that maybe drow were all going soft in the heart _and_ the head."

Jaiyan laughed. "You're a bastard, aren't you?"

"Only when I need to be."

Imloth leaned forward on his elbows. "Keep that kind of opinion that loud, and I'll be scraping you up off the floor."

"Oh? And I thought this was a city full of _good_ drow."

Imloth ignored him, and said, quietly, "You'll all have rooms in the temple. I'd advise caution."

"And tomorrow?" Valen asked.

"Tomorrow…" Imloth gazed down at his clasped hands for a long moment. "Tomorrow, our next move needs to be decided."

The day wore on, slowly, broken only when Imloth called for food. Drow drifted in and out through the door, and though no objections were raised, Jaiyan was very aware of their eyes, silent and suspicious. She had been tempted to make some awful joke about boiled rothe meat, but she had not quite mustered the enthusiasm. Eventually, when Valen murmured that they should probably go, Imloth nodded slowly.

"I'll stay, at least until the Seer's finished," he said. "Be careful."

Deekin announced that he would also remain, so Jaiyan prodded a surly agreement out of the mercenary, that he would stick around as long as the kobold did. "I know he can breathe fire," she added. "I don't care. I don't want him alone in here."

The walk back to the temple proved quiet enough, though Jaiyan found herself gripping her sword hilt, and almost hating herself for it. Past the high double doors again, and up to the room Imloth had mentioned, and she realised again how silent everything seemed. Once the door was locked behind them, she relaxed a little, looked around, and frowned. "This is my old room, isn't it?"

"Well, not really, since the temple was mostly destroyed." Valen checked the door again. "But is in the same place, I think."

"So it _is_ my old room. Sort of." She dumped her packs at the foot of the bed, let her swordbelt drop on top. "Which means it's _sort of_ the first place we spent the night together."

Valen groaned. "Not really. Given that this half of the temple fell into a big pile of rubble when the Valsharess attacked."

"Oh, nice. I was trying to be romantic."

He smiled. "I'm sorry."

"No, you're not." She turned, caught his hands when he moved to unbuckle his armour. "You are worried."

"Yes." He stayed still, let her work the clasps open. "This place…this was the first place I ever felt safe. And now it feels…"

"I know." She heaved his breastplate off, turned her attention to the underpadding. "It feels wrong. There's no prophecy, and no rebels, not really. Just something out there that's rather nasty."

"The Valsharess…the threat of her troops, anyway…held them together. I understand that, now. And with the Seer being gone…"

She lifted his arm, started on his bracers. "You think that Nathyrra failed?"

"No. Not really." Valen grimaced. "But they are drow, and there's a lot of them, and she is…not the Seer. And I can undress myself, you know."

"I know." She leaned up, kissed the tip of his nose. "This is more fun, though."

Resignedly, he held out his other arm. "If the decision is made to go after these things, to go into the Underdark, I suppose it would be too much to hope for that you would stay here?"

"You would indeed suppose correctly." She untangled his shirt laces, pulled the garment up and over his horns. "I'm not staying here, not without you, and you know it."

"Yes, I know it. I just thought I should make the effort, at least."

Jaiyan guided him to the end of the bed, pushed him down. Kneeling between his feet, she unlaced his boots. "I'm coming with you, Valen. No arguing."

"I know." He gazed down at her through thoughtful blue eyes. "I just…I came so close to losing you in Sigil. I don't want…"

"You won't," she said, gently. She tugged his boots off, braced her hands on his knees. "You're stuck with me."

"And you are wearing far too many clothes," he protested. "This is hardly fair."

She ran her hands up the inside of his thighs, smirked. "No, it's not fair at all."

"Can I at least return the favour?"

Her fingers hooked against his belt. "Not yet," she told him. "Not in this room, anyway."

Valen sighed. "It's _not_ the same room."

"That's not the point." She unbuckled his belt, wrestled a moment with the laces beneath. Obediently, he arched his hips off the bed, let her peel his breeches down. "Mmm. Much better."

He laughed, leaned down, wrapped his arms around her, and lifted her easily. Deposited alongside him, with his tail snaking around her waist, Jaiyan trailed an idle hand across his collarbones. "Do you remember your first time?"

"With you?" He grinned. "Of course. I'm slightly hurt that you don't seem to, my lady."

"Don't be a tease. I don't mean _us_, and you know it."

He threaded his fingers through hers. "Yes, I remember it. It was…over very quickly, as I recall. Which I'm fairly certain was my fault."

She laughed. "Was it Kyreia?"

"Yes. I mean, I think so." His eyes clouded. "I mean…there's so much I've forgotten. I'm sorry."

"It's alright." She reached behind his head, found the tie that kept his hair tamed, and slid it free. "It was just a silly question."

His gaze skittered across her face. "What about you?"

"Over rather quickly as well." She grinned, ruefully. "It didn't hurt much, and it was, well, fun…but it wasn't…let's just say I didn't see stars." Reaching out, she toyed with the loose ends of his hair. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't've asked."

"No, it's not…" He shook his head, gave up, and kissed her. "I don't know what I'm saying."

Lightly, she let her fingers skim down his chest, over the knotted lines of old scars. "You think the Seer's going to decide that striking out into grim and gloomy caverns will be the best course of action?"

"You sound like your kobold. And yes, probably." Valen found her belt buckle, tugged it open. "But any decisions will wait for tomorrow, which I have to admit pleases me."

She smiled, then gasped when his tail slid up her thigh and tightened. "And why would that be?"

Slowly, he unlaced her shirt, coaxed it over her head. "Oh, I have a few thoughts, none of which have to do with talking."

Usually, she would have quite happily melted against him. They had the advantage of a locked door and a bed to themselves, and he was already temptingly naked. "Valen?"

His hands roamed beneath her waist, stroked. "Yes, my love?"

"I'm…worried. About when we were attacked today."

His touch stilled. "I know. How do you follow something in the dark that you can barely see?"

"At least you can _barely_ see them. I couldn't see a damn thing at all."

"I know. And that…troubles me." He shook his head. "I don't like the idea of you standing up to something you can't see."

She smiled, a little shakily. A cold, gnawing kind of apprehension had settled in her belly. She remembered the way the air had moved around her, the way her sword had bitten into something that gave way, but felt very unlike flesh. "You'll keep me safe, won't you?"

"Like in Sigil?"

Jaiyan drew in a slow breath, shoved aside a sudden burst of anger. "Valen." She picked up his hand, kissed his knuckles, one by one, and slowly. "I love you. And yes, you'll be keeping me safe, because I'll be hiding behind you while you wallop them, one at a time."

The firm cast of his face shifted into something close to a smile. "A sound plan, my love. I approve."

"Good." She leaned in, kissed him. When he responded only tentatively, she grasped his horns and held onto him until his mouth opened and the movement of his lips turned hungry and eager. "Now come here. I can think of something else I'm sure you'll approve of."


	33. Chapter 33

_The usual disclaimer still applies of course. A very big thank-you to everyone who's following this story, and reviews are always welcome. _

_**Chapter Thirty-Three – Portent**_

Around the tall statues, the air was still. Hands lightly clasped, the Seer bowed her head and drew in a slow, measured breath. Behind closed eyelids, she could still see them, lined up on the walls, bows trained, and expecting to kill. _How had it come to this, and so quickly? _Somewhere behind her, she was aware of Imloth's presence, steadying and solid and so very welcome. Another breath calmed her, and she lifted her head, gazed up at the stone eyes of her goddess, and hoped.

_Help me_, she thought. _Please help me. _

Had she chosen wrong, in leaving the city? In staying on the surface with Imloth? Should she have remained to guide them? _Would it have been different, had _you_ been here when Andaryn came stumbling out of the darkness, bleeding and alone? _Some bone-deep instinct had led to that choice, and the choices before it, when she had fled her mother's people, and found her way to the abandoned outpost that became Lith My'athar. _And even before that,_ she reflected, _back when you stole up to the surface just so you could see the moonlight. _

_ Did you make the wrong choice this time?_

The air stirred across her face, touched the hair pinned at her temples. Her eyes slipped closed again, and her thoughts sharpened. _Each beat of your heart, each breath, each thump of the blood in your veins_. She remembered the vision of Lith My'athar's saviour, tearing through her dreams and leaving her woken and gasping. And Nathyrra's face, eyes wide in impossible hope, when she had spoken of this new prophecy.

_Darkness, impenetrable. High stone, deep and black and untouched. The stone of the deeps, untenanted and bleak. Caverns, open and high and dripping. Stone floors coated with grime and water, stagnant and thick. Down here, so far down even a drow might go mad, where even the silence tasted rotten. _

Her thoughts upended in a shower of white sparks against her eyelids, and she held on grimly. She dug her nails into her palms, swallowed. Behind, she heard footsteps, and Nathyrra snapping at Imloth to leave her be, to let the vision run its course.

_Slender white bones, curving and tall, taller than a drow, probably taller than a tall surfacer. Smooth and pale, and standing out so brightly against the blackness. _

This must be where Andaryn's group was sent, _must be_, and her eyes ached when she tried to see what shapes they made, why they were even _there_. She twisted, tried to see, and her skin turned cold. The creeping, clinging coldness of something old. S_omething that hates,_ she thought. _Something that is nearby, and wants the blood of your people. _

_ Something that was woken, and woken by the Valsharess. _

Her fingers clenched again in frustration. _Can they be curbed? Trapped, defeated? _

She saw the bones again, high, clean arches. The earth beneath was dark with blood and the seeping flesh of too may dead, too many lost. _Too many sent to their deaths. _ She looked up, and saw strange letters, carved deep into the stone. Who had etched them, she wondered, and how long ago, and for what purpose? _To guard or to warn? _

_Twisting shapes, tearing the air with their screaming. Runes flaring, too bright against the enveloping darkness. Someone snarling something in drow. Swords, slicing through old flesh. Some high-pitched terrible sound that turned her spine cold. _

She tried to look closer, but some roaring, deafening sound overcame her, filled her head with the rushing of water. _Dark water, gushing past boulders, foaming white. _

The vision broke, and she staggered. Her hands bumped roughly against the statue, and she gritted her teeth. Everything seemed suddenly too loud, too intrusive. Imloth's lips brushed the nape of her neck, and she almost flinched. _You didn't hear him_, her mind pointed out accusingly. _Focus. You need to focus_.

"Are you alright?" Very gently, his fingers smoothed through her hair. "What did you see?"

"Not enough." To give herself some time, she drew in a long, slow breath. "I saw…bones. And darkness." Keeping her eyes on Imloth's face, she explained her vision with careful, simple words.

"Well, that's helpful." Perched cross-legged on a bench, Andaryn sighed. "Did that tell us anything I didn't?"

"It told me these things can be vanquished," she said, firmly.

"But you don't know how."

"No," she allowed. "But they can be ended. That, at least, matters."

"Then I suppose we find out when we get there." Andaryn grinned. "Unless I'm misunderstanding our plans right now?"

"No. You're not." She turned, looked back up at the statue again. "You must go. Do you understand?"

A tremor ran through his frame. "Do I have a choice?"

"Of course," she answered, softly. "There is always a choice. The problem, though, is that you have been to this place, and can take us there. You _are_ needed, as terrible a request as it is."

"As terrible?" His head tipped to one side, and his crimson eyes narrowed. "And you would _know_ what it was like, would you?"

"Yes," she said. "I saw it. And I saw you, fleeing through the darkness. I saw you, running blind and panicked and wondering if every step was going to end in your death."

Andaryn scowled. "Oh, I adore choices like this. They're so easy. I don't suppose I could just draw you a map?"

Watching him, she could see his fear, written into every hard angle of his face. "What would your choice be?"

"Sitting here, in this temple, and quite conveniently unarmed?" His smile turned bleak. "I suppose I'll take the sensible option and die out in the dark rather than in here."

Some part of her ached, that he assumed the price for sanctuary would require his life. Years ago – months ago, even – she would have taken the time to sit with him, and listen, and learn his past, as she had with every drow who had come through the gates of Lith My'athar seeking refuge. _But even so, _some prodding thought reminded, _you did that, and still there was betrayal.  
_

"Good," she heard herself say. "Then you will leave as soon as supplies can be gathered."

"Just me? I hope you realize I probably won't get very far on my own."

She leveled a firm gaze at him, and saw his taut frame buckle, ever so slightly. "Imloth will go with you, as will the others who came with us." Before he could say something else, she added, "I will stay here, with Nathyrra."

Nathyrra's head snapped up. "Mother Seer…"

"No," she said, gently. "It is better, this way. I will not be seen as replacing you, nor will I be seen as sending you away in punishment."

Nathyrra nodded slowly. "As you wish it."

***

Left alone with the Seer, Imloth waited until the doors closed again. Nathyrra had prowled wordlessly away, Andaryn in tow, with plans to head first for the armoury. "Are you certain of this?"

"Leaving so quickly? Yes. I think so. I just fear…there is too little time." Her pale eyes flickered as she regarded him. "Please…Imloth, you must be careful."

"I will. I'm a drow, and we move very softly when we want to." He smiled, and felt a prickle of unease when she did not respond. "I will be careful."

"I don't want to…" She cupped his chin. "I _can't_ lose you."

"You won't lose me," Imloth murmured back. "Not to this." He touched her hair, gently smoothed stray wisps behind her ear. "You are troubled. Talk to me."

"These things can be killed," she said. "Of that, I am certain. I heard them dying. But...I don't know how."

"Perhaps the old-fashioned tactic of simply swinging a sword around might work," he answered, his tone light. "Everything dies. You know this."

"Yes." She trailed a hand up his chest, caught a handful of his collar. "That is what unsettles me. And, Imloth, the river. The river I saw. I don't understand its meaning."

"There are many rivers in the Underdark."

"True enough, but this was…" She shook her head slowly. "I'm sorry. You need to prepare, and I'm worrying needlessly."

"Not needlessly." He surveyed her face again, and his heart twisted at how bleak her eyes seemed. He wanted to tell her that he knew he was going to come back, and whole, and that he intended to never leave her side again, not if he could help it. "Did you see anything else?"

"No. Only what I told you. A cavern, somewhere very deep. Bones, strange letters. These things screaming. Dying. And the river." Her eyes darted, jumped back up to his face again. "You should go to the armoury."

"Not yet." He could not leave her like this, hollow-eyed, and with her hands knotting together. He wanted to tell her something that would make her believe him, make her believe that they had survived worse, and that he would be coming back. But he had little time, and words were failing him, so he clasped her face and kissed her.

She moaned, and her arms slid up around his shoulders. "Imloth."

He kissed her again, deeply, until she melted against him. He nuzzled her throat first, then the tip of her ear, and felt her tremble. His hands reached the ties on her robes, slipped them free.

"Not here." She grasped his wrist. "Imloth, not here."

Even now, after so much time, he rarely initiated such things. Comfortable intimacy with a single female felt occasionally odd, if entirely pleasurable, and he still tended to wait for her. More than once, she had suggested that he did not have to, that there was no need, that she no more owned him than she did the air she breathed.

"Where?" he murmured against her neck.

"No time," she whispered back. Her fingers slid through his hair. "Imloth, there's no time."

"Yes, there is." Insistently, he captured her lips again. "There's time for this. I need you."

She pulled away from him, searched his face again. Her mouth curved into a slightly tentative smile, and then she was kissing him back, full of desperation and longing. He responded, pulling her tightly against him. She was small and slim in his arms, and when her teeth grazed the tip of his ear, his knees nearly gave way.

"Where?" he asked again. "Otherwise I might very well earn Eilistraee's disfavour and let you have me right here."

The Seer laughed. "I do not think Eilistraee would mind. I, however, would prefer not to deal with any interruptions, so I suggest going upstairs and locking the door." She brushed her lips across his, tenderly. "I find myself preferring your charms entirely to myself."

***

In the armoury, Nathyrra pulled down a wrapped bundle of arrows. Long, thin, and black-fletched, they were the preference of scouts, and lethally fast. She tossed them across to Andaryn, and snapped, "Take these."

He slid the coverings back, examined a barbed tip. "Mmm. The very best for those about to die, it seems. Are you _concerned_ for my safety, Mistress?"

"What would you prefer? That I break down and weep for you?"

"Not at all. That would be quite horribly uncharacteristic, don't you think?" He arranged the arrows into a quiver. "Anything else?"

"Yes." She tugged a narrow-bladed sword off the nearest rack. "This."

"But, Mistress, you have already been kind enough to allow me my own weapons back."

"You don't know how long you'll be gone." She grasped his wrist, pressed the hilt into his hand. "Just take it. And bring it back."

Andaryn paused. "Is that what _you_ would prefer?"

"No," she answered, venomously. "What I would prefer is to be coming with you." Something twisted in her stomach, and she amended, "All of you."

"Ah, Matron Mother. It _is_ better this way, yes?"

"Yes, far more sensible." She sighed and flicked her braids back over her shoulder. "I still…I am an assassin, Andaryn. I should be there, killing with you, not waiting for you."

"There is always killing to be done somewhere, Mistress."

"Yes, but…" _Eilistraee's wisdom, _how_ is it you can be so tongue-tied? He's just a male,_ she thought, _and an arrogant one, at that. _"This is my city, and I should…"

"No." Firmly, all taunting stripped from his voice, he qualified, "Your Mother Seer is sending her allies with me. She may very well need you."

She looked at him sharply. "The Seer can take care of herself. She held a rebellion against the Valsharess, and her troops won."

"Yes. I don't doubt that. But, Mistress, surely you know as well as I do…an assassin's blade is sometimes all the more useful protecting. Not out in the darkness, trying to attack something we don't know _nearly_ enough about."

Nathyrra stared at his fingers, locked tight around the sword hilt. His whole frame was rigid, and there was a low-toned urgency in his words that unsettled her. She turned away, found another bundle of arrows, and threw them to him. "Here. Between you and Imloth, you'll need a few."

"He's your Seer's favourite. Isn't he?"

Nathyrra grinned. "He's her only." Over his perplexed frown, she added, "Now come on. We need to find you some decent armour."

In the adjoining chamber, she hunted past lines of chain shirts until she discovered the light, black scout's armour she sought. Segmented, serpentine pieces that clamped over leather, and left enough room to run. "Put it on."

"The leathers only, Mistress, I must insist."

She smirked. "Insist as much as you wish, male. You're wearing this, if I have to strap it on you myself."

"A tantalizing prospect, but I move faster in leathers."

"And you'll move a lot slower if one of those things rips you open from your waist to your throat." Forcefully, she shoved the armour at him, closed his arms around it, and smiled again. "You might be gone a while. It's the safer choice."

"Safer?" His lips twisted, but he did not drop the armour. "_Nothing_ is safer, Mistress. Surely you know that by now."

"Of course I know that," she snarled. Her fingers curled against her palms. "I have seen this city turn from _my sanctuary_ into a place almost ruined by treachery, and _all_ because _you_ arrived. Do not think to reprimand me about safety, male, and do not speak again until you have that armour on."

For a long moment, Andaryn met her level glare, as fiercely. Then one side of his mouth slid up. Slowly and wordlessly, he peeled his tunic off, kicked his boots away. With his gaze barely leaving hers, he pulled the leathers on, laced them tight. The slim, black armour pieces followed, buckled over the tops of his thighs and around his shoulders and across his stomach. "Is my Mistress satisfied?"

"Not at all," she retorted, but her voice had little sting. Instead, she felt curiously disgruntled, and while she understood the Seer's reasoning, she still bristled. "The opposite, in fact. Do you know, when the Valsharess' forces attacked this place, I spent most of the siege lying flat on my back on a pallet, bleeding and wondering why I seemed cursed with bad luck?"

Andaryn laughed slightly. "You survived, and you call it bad luck, Mistress? Where were you hurt?"

"Here." She touched just above her collarbone. "Arrow."

"A treacherous place for an injury. I suppose I could tell you that you are, in fact, _very_ lucky, and that by rights you should have died in moments and drowned in your own blood."

"You could. We have little time for such charming sentiments, however, and you need supplies."

Andaryn reached out. His hand hovered over her shoulder, but he shook his head, and lowered his arm. "Yes."

A quick trip to the storerooms at the temple, and Nathyrra briskly turned Andaryn around and tied a full pack to his back. He grimaced, and muttered, "Is my bow even going to fit alongside all that?"

"Of course it is." She yanked a strap tighter. "And unless you want to live on mold and half-rotten lizards while you're gone, you'll thank me, and politely."

"How could I not, Mistress?"

She slung his bow across his shoulder, and unthinkingly brushed his hair out of his collar. He said nothing, but she felt a small tremor run through him. She snatched her hand back, inwardly cursed herself, and snapped, "Come on. We need to meet the others."

Silently, he trailed her back past the market square, towards the gates. She noticed the Seer first, standing poised and elegant, Imloth close beside her. Nathyrra dropped her hand to a dagger hilt, flicked at it irritably. She could hear Andaryn, walking with every step precise and quiet, and she wanted to snarl at him to at least match her pace, instead of lurking behind her.

"Nathyrra?"

She spun, and her intended words died on her lips. He was looking at her curiously, almost tentatively. "Yes?"

He ran a slow, thoughtful gaze across her. "I have to admit, Mistress, that despite the insanity that I am about to embark upon, that…well, I am rather glad that you did not take the initiative to kill me when I first arrived. Half-dead, unconscious, and rather unable to fight back…it must have been a tempting thought, Mistress."

"How do you know I even considered it?"

"Because you are not stupid, and neither am I, and _I _would have considered it, Mistress. And we are rather alike, aren't we?"

She studied him for a long moment, and despite herself, she returned his challenging smile. "Yes," she said, eventually. "Yes, I suppose we are."

***

Jaiyan shifted the weight of her pack, scuffed her foot along the ground, and tried to figure out how this decision could, in any light, on any world, possibly end well. _We're actually going to go out there, and try and move quietly enough that we don't get spotted. But if we _do_ get spotted, we have to run and hope to every god up there that these things don't get the scent of our blood. That drow male survived. Yes, but every single other drow he was with did not, and he looks very much the worse for wear, even now._

_ No, _she thought. _Not ending well. _She sighed, and leaned heavily against Valen.

"I am not standing here just so I can hold you up, you know."

"Why not? It's not as if you're doing anything else right now."

He smiled, and wound an arm around her. "Anything my lady commands. And before we leave, I want you to promise me something."

"No, I'm not staying behind," she retorted idly.

"Not that," he admonished. "When we're out there, I want you to stay behind me, and do _exactly_ what I tell you. Or what Imloth tells you. Agreed?"

She grinned up at him. "You say that like I'm liable not to. Mean tiefling."

"I mean it." His tail lashed up, coiled around her wrist. "No heroics."

"I'm one of the Heroes of Waterdeep. I'm expected to be heroic."

Ignoring the others, Valen turned. He slid his hands down her arms to her elbows, and muttered, "I'm serious, Jaiyan. I do _not_ want to see you hurt, so you will stay behind me, and you will _not_ argue."

She looked up into his earnest blue eyes and understood. Sigil and Azraleth lay too close in the past, and she knew he still tended not to sleep through the night. "I already agreed, Valen. I'll be hiding right behind you."

He exhaled slowly. "Good."

"And besides, who better than some tall and solid tiefling to take the beatings for you?"

He grinned. "You're infuriating."

"I know. I thought that was why you loved me."

His grip on her arms loosened, and he cupped her face. "No, that's _not_ one of the many reasons I love you."

She leaned into his palm. "Spoilsport."

Past Valen, Dakesh folded his arms and sighed loudly. "Finally. Our unenthusiastic scout arrives."

Jaiyan straightened up, noticed Nathyrra leading the other drow, the thin male with the defiant eyes. He walked like some disgruntled big cat, all lean muscle and terse shoulders.

"Mother Seer." Nathyrra inclined her head. "He is ready."

"Very well." The Seer drew down a deep breath.

Her eyes were round and luminous in the gloom, and Jaiyan could not recall ever before seeing her like this. _All wound-up and nervous, and trying to hide it, _she thought. Even when Lith My'athar burned, the drow had remained almost glacially calm, but now, her eyes were a fraction too wide, and her hands were clamped together, and she wondered again at the visions Imloth had mentioned. The Seer's gaze flicked up to the walls, to the ranks of archers watching. The sentries stationed at the towers had reported no movement in the darkness, but Jaiyan supposed that helped little, given the unpredictable nature of the attacks.

A dry, cool snout bumped her forearm, and she grinned down at Deekin. "All packed and ready?"

"Yes, Boss. Though Deekin wonders how we going to manage this one."

"That's crossed my mind lately, too, Deeks."

His black eyes glinted wickedly. "Why Boss not just say no, then?"

She groaned. "Because if it's dangerous, stupid, and likely to bite our heads off, we say yes to it, don't we? Something about adventuring. You get to make all the stupid decisions."

Deekin clicked his teeth. "Boss find a way. Boss _always_ finds a way."

"I hope so." She squeezed his shoulder. "You have far too much faith in me, Master Kobold."

He shrugged. "It not be faith, Boss. It just be truth. Like that time Boss walloped undead priest in the desert with a huge bit of stone."

Jaiyan winced. "Yes, well. Deeks, if you remember, I didn't _plan_ on clobbering him with a bit of stone. I only clobbered him with it because my sword ended up on the other side of the room, and you were fighting off two skeletons. It was the closest thing to hand, apart from that old thigh bone, and I figured it might do more damage."

"Three skeletons." Deekin grinned. "Still be truth, though. Boss found a way."

Beside the gates, the Seer was speaking, and Jaiyan belatedly realised she should probably be listening. Something about venturing into the darkness for the drow of Lith My'athar, and something about how their saviour was back, and how she had done so much good while fighting the Valsharess, and would undoubtedly do so again. Jaiyan cringed and stared at the ground between her boots. _Nice, why not just throw in the part about how much ale I drank at your tavern, while you're at it? _

On the walls, the archers stayed silent. Still watching the Seer, Jaiyan saw her unwavering gaze move to Imloth. Coldness ran down Jaiyan's spine; she was looking at him strangely, fiercely. _Very much like you looked at Valen before the Valsharess's forces arrived, _she noted_. She's looking at him like she's never going to see him again_.

Imloth lifted the Seer's hand, placed a gentle kiss on her palm. Then he murmured something, too low to hear, and smiled. She did not smile back, only clutched at his wrist until he said something else, and kissed her hand again.

Jaiyan swallowed and tried to push back a ripple of apprehension. Imloth turned, nodded to Andaryn, and marched through the gates. As agreed, she took her place behind Valen, and in front of Deekin. The two drow led, matching pace, and Dakesh followed along last. Each step took them further away from the gates and the lights along the guard towers. Peering around Valen, she could make out little detail on the tall boulders ahead, and the high rock columns beyond were almost entirely lost in gloom.

Deekin murmured some sibilant words, and a tiny point of light floated up from his hand, stilled near his shoulder. Jaiyan knew the plan, had heard Imloth when he had ordered no torches, and any magelights to be extinguished upon his command. _Still_, she thought grumpily, _it sounded better in a nice, safe stone room, not walking out here. And anyway, _he_ can see in the dark. _She gripped her sword hilt tighter. Trying to distract herself, she twisted round, glanced back.

The Seer stood beside Nathyrra, framed by the gates, while the torches fluttered above.

She stumbled over loose stone, swore, and glared down at the ground.

"Keep your eyes forward," Dakesh muttered from somewhere behind her. "I don't want to fall over you and your kobold if I don't have to."

"Having you back there makes me feel so safe," she sniped back at him. "If something attacks us, do take the time to scream and warn me, won't you?"

He laughed. "I'll try, I promise. Would shrill and high-pitched work, or would that prove too embarrassing?"

Up ahead, Imloth paused, turned. The hint of a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. "We need silence, or I fear you'll be following up on that promise a little too soon."

Ruefully, Jaiyan swallowed her planned retort. However much she might want to evade her own needling anxiety, the drow was right. She quickened her pace, reached out, and grasped Valen's hand. He did not turn, did not even look over his shoulder, but his fingers tightened around hers. Very aware of the darkness, and the soft, scraping sounds of her own footsteps, Jaiyan allowed herself a small smile, and did not let go.


	34. Chapter 34

_As always, most of the characters, settings and so on belong to Bioware. Reviews are always welcome. _

_**Chapter Thirty-Four – Prey**_

The first five days passed slowly and almost silently. Andaryn led, guiding them along narrow stone passageways and past high rock outcrops and underneath ledges that scraped low enough to the ground to make Jaiyan's shoulders prickle. Nights – or what she guessed was their version of nights – were spent in cramped together in small caves, where Deekin would cast shimmering lines of wards across the stone, and they slept in shifts. Imloth ordered no fires upon resting, and while it was not cold, Jaiyan missed the simple familiarity of it.

Halfway through the first day, Imloth had caught her elbow, and murmured, "Take this."

He pressed a tangled cord into her hand, and she discovered a small, warm stone. "What is it?"

"A light stone," he answered. "In case…well, in case Deekin's magelights aren't enough. It won't give you away, if you're careful with it, and while it will probably be useless in a fight, well…you won't be blind."

"Like in Sigil."

He nodded. "Yes."

Slipping the pendant over her head, she let it nestle inside her collar, and tried not to think about having to depend upon it.

And now, sitting with her back against cool stone and Valen sleeping nearby, she found herself toying with the small stone again. One of Deekin's lights threw soft beams across the low stone roof, and past where Dakesh stood on watch. Jaiyan sighed, let the pendant fall back inside her tunic. She looked around the cave again, and noted with some disgust that the two drow looked far too comfortable, sleeping curled in capes and breathing softly.

_Even Valen's sleeping well, _she conceded, slightly wryly. She was tempted to reach down, touch his shoulder, but she did not want to disturb him, not really. Through bleak necessity, they had spoken little, these past days, but she still caught him watching her sidelong, and every time she brushed past him, or gripped his hand, he smiled. They had encountered little past dust, and dirt, and that seeping water that Jaiyan was sure ran down every rock in the Underdark. She supposed she should really be grateful, but when the silence and the darkness gave up nothing, her mind wandered and threw up horrible thoughts. _Is Lith My'athar under attack right now? Why haven't we seen _anything_? Surely there should be duergar outposts, or something?_

She did not remember the caverns being this lifelessly empty. _Hells, _she thought, _last time it sometimes seemed we couldn't take a single step anywhere without bumping into a bunch of drow or a dracolich or something else. _

Jaiyan tugged at the pendant again, dropped it, and tried to think of something else. The mostly-full bottle of brandy stashed in her pack sprang to mind, but she scowled. _Probably not the best choice right now. _To distract herself, she pushed herself up and crossed the cave.

Dakesh turned his head slightly. "Can't sleep?"

"No." She crouched down beside him, wrapped her arms around her shins. "I think I worked myself up into believing we'd be fighting every step of the way, and now we're not, I can't calm down properly."

"I suppose being tired's better than being dead."

"Hah. Yes." She glanced past him, into the long, narrow slope that lead back out. "You've been down here before."

"A few times." His gaze stayed pinned on the darkness. "Not exactly by choice."

"You were summoned."

"Me and a whole lot of others who had the same misfortune as me." His mouth lifted in a sour smile. "Can't really do much about it when you're a slave."

"No." For a long moment, she stared down at her linked hands. "When you agreed to help Deekin, did you know you'd be going up against Azraleth?"

"No." His voice turned hard. "There's a lot of slavers in that city. We just got lucky."

"Lucky." Jaiyan snorted. "We didn't."

"You're still alive. That's lucky."

"You're right. I suppose." She tipped her head back against the wall. "Why'd you come with us?"

"_You_ practically dragged me through that damn portal, as I recall."

She smirked. "Not through the portal. Down here."

"You heard me. I've done enough guard duty to bore a corpse."

She shot him a narrow-eyed look. "So you just had _such _a hankering to crawl around caves and get attacked by nasty things with claws you can't see."

"I'm a glutton for punishment, it seems." Dakesh sighed. He twisted round, his dark eyes thoughtful. "Why are _you_ here? And don't give me some fluttery romantic reason."

"Oh, what? But I'm here because of the power of true love and eternal faith in your friends, didn't you know?" She grinned at him. "Doesn't loyalty and friendship mean anything to anyone these days?"

His smile widened. "I don't know. I'll tell you when I get paid."

"I'm here because, well, I don't have anywhere else to be." She bit her lip. "And because of Valen."

"That's the fluttery part I didn't want to know about."

"It's still true." She looked sidelong at him, noticed faint, thin scars on the hands crossed over his knee. "You knew Azraleth."

"Yes."

"What happened?"

"Something not very exciting, all too common in Sigil, rather long ago, and I am not about to unburden my poor, tortured little soul to you." His grin returned, bright and edged. "And besides, if the ache in the base of my spine is any indication, it's Imloth's turn to wake up and take his watch, and my turn to try sleeping on a cave floor."

Cloth rustled, and Imloth rolled over and sighed. "What do you mean, 'wake up'?"

Jaiyan smiled, a little guiltily. "Sorry. I thought I was whispering quietly enough."

"It wasn't you, I assure you. I think I've become a little too used to sleeping in a real bed, these past months." Imloth flicked his cape away. "Anything?"

"Nothing," Dakesh answered. "Though if you want, I could go drip some blood on the stone out there and see what happens."

Imloth groaned. "No, please, don't feel you have to. If I want to use you as bait, I'll ask."

Dakesh shoved up to his feet. "I can't wait."

"Well, what else are you here for?" Imloth countered.

"The food?"

"I thought you'd worked with drow before. Surely you should know our food's terrible. Or at least, that's what surfacers tell me."

Jaiyan sighed. "That's aimed at me, isn't it?"

"Only slightly." Imloth's eyes roved up, and he scrubbed a hand through his hair. "You need to sleep."

"I tried."

"I need you alert," he said, firmly. "It's been a while since you were down here."

"I always thought that worked out fairly well. In the end, anyway."

"Apart from the part where you, Valen and Deekin died?" Imloth smiled slowly. "I need you prepared, and I need you ready, Jaiyan. I've never…" He shook his head. "I've never heard of creatures like this before."

The wary, uncertain tone of his voice shook her. She dredged up a smile, and managed, "True, but I'm going to be surrounded by people who can see in the dark far better than I can, so who am I to worry?"

"You can worry plenty if that light stone gets lost or your kobold gets killed." He rubbed at his forehead again. "I'm sorry. That wasn't fair."

"No. It's alright." Jaiyan stared down at her hands, loosely linked. "And you're right. I should get some sleep."

She made her way back across the stone floor, past where Deekin slept with his tail covering half his face. She stepped around his packs, and found her blankets exactly as she had left them, unrolled and still rather unwelcoming.

Nearby, Valen still slept, his head pillowed one on arm. Watching him, and way his face was unguarded, she wished suddenly that they were back on the surface, or at least somewhere with doors that closed, so she could curl up under his blankets with him. But this was the Underdark, and there was still so much to be done, so she flopped down, drew her knees up, and tried not to think about the darkness, and whatever else might be in it.

***

Nathyrra vaulted up the temple steps, and breathed in the fragrant flood of incense smoke as she stepped inside. A quick look across the chamber showed her robed clerics, kneeling in prayer before the statues, and she could not quite suppress a bitter smile. She unclenched her fingers slowly, and crossed to the wide stairs. There, she found Olortyr waiting, one hand on her sword, and her head tipped to one side.

"The Seer has asked for you?"

Nathyrra stopped, considered her response, and folded her arms. "She has asked for me."

"Forgive me, Matron Mother," the other drow said. "I merely wish to protect the Seer's interests."

"I'm certain you do." Nathyrra summoned a vicious smile. "A shame we couldn't have reached this conclusion sooner, don't you think?"

Olortyr's expression did not waver. "You will be leaving your weapons here, then, Matron Mother?"

"I will _what?_"

"The Seer is likely to be unarmed, so I do not wish anyone in her presence with weapons."

_The Seer is a spellcaster capable of turning this entire city to rubble, if she chose_, Nathyrra thought. She was tempted, _oh so tempted_, to tell Olortyr exactly what she could do with her demands. _Maybe even introduce her to those weapons she wants you to drop.  
_

"Very well," Nathyrra said, all knife-edge politeness. "As you wish it." She unbuckled her daggers, passed them across. "I trust they will be returned later?"

Without waiting to properly hear Olortyr's muttered agreement, she pushed past, and stalked up to the Seer's chambers. Inside, she discovered the Seer sitting curled in the windowseat, her hands twisted over her knees. She turned, and smiled, looking tired beneath a loose fall of white hair. "Nathyrra."

"Mother Seer." She closed the door, and tried to swallow the last of her irritation. "My daggers were confiscated."

The Seer sighed. "I am sorry. Though I suspect Olortyr will cause less trouble this way."

"I didn't say it was Olortyr."

"You didn't have to." The Seer raked a hand through her hair, swung her feet onto the floor. "Please, sit down."

Nathyrra chose the empty chair near the casement. For a long moment, she stared down at her own hands, gloved and locked tightly together. The Seer said nothing, only waited with that cool, serene patience that she remembered so very well. "Seer, I…" _I made some terrible choices. I did some rash, terrible things. I sent the whole city into danger. I made you come back down here. _But only two words followed, spilling from her lips before she could think better of it. "I'm sorry."

"Nathyrra." The Seer's voice was soft. "There is nothing to be sorry for."

"But I…" She wanted to look away, at the floor, the walls, but she made herself look back, made herself hold the Seer's gaze. "There is a lot to be sorry for. I let him in."

"Do you think it would all have been better, had you had him killed at the outset?" The Seer shook her head slowly. "Killing Andaryn would have robbed you of his knowledge, and robbed you of him."

"I don't…" Her hands uncurled helplessly. "It might have been easier."

"It would still have been murder. Nathyrra, this would have happened had I been here. He would have arrived, and the same decision would have been made." Unequivocal and piercing, the Seer added, "Yes, you lost control of the council. Yes, perhaps giving yourself the title of Matron Mother was wrong. Yes, the city had been shaken, terribly. But it will endure."

"How can you be so certain?" Nathyrra whispered.

"Because I will _make_ it endure."

"But had I not…" Nathyrra shook her head. "Forgive me."

"I will not forgive," the Seer said, a little archly. "There is nothing that _needs_ forgiveness. Nathyrra, mistakes are made. Not everything can be controlled, and kept in place. What is it you wish me to say to you? That you were arrogant? That you could have told the council of what Andaryn knew? Yes, you could. And what then? Erelaer or someone else would have likely had him strung up all the sooner, and he would be dead."

"Instead, he's out there, and likely to die anyway," she snapped.

"Perhaps," the Seer allowed. "He is a strong one, though. You see that."

Nathyrra swallowed her instinctive, cruel response, that his strength would matter little if his blood ribboned the stone of some far-off cavern. "Yes. I see that."

***

Another half-day's march at a grueling pace took them through low-roofed tunnels and past a gaping, empty cave mouth that made Jaiyan's shoulders prickle uneasily. She wondered again how Andaryn was remembering the trail, with its labyrinthine twists and turns, and hoped it was simply some drow trait, rather than him guessing. Walking beside Deekin, she had one hand clamped over his shoulder, and no inclination to let go. Ahead of her, Valen stopped, and she pulled up, a half-step short of ploughing into him. She peered around him, saw Imloth's hand up, and Andaryn crouched down. The two drow signed something to each other, their hands flickering, and she pushed back sudden frustration. _Be nice to know if we're about to be attacked, yes? _

Imloth nodded down at the ground, and she noticed something thick and dark, patching the stone. _Blood_, she realised. Dried blood, and gleaming under Deekin's magelight. Some other sign passed between the drow, and Andaryn turned, heaving himself up over a jutting outcrop. Moving almost soundlessly, he glided up the rocky slope until the darkness closed in over him.

Watching, Jaiyan chewed the inside of her cheek. Her shoulders were crawling with impatience. She glanced back at Valen, saw that his hand was around his flail haft, slowly sliding it free. He turned, nodded at her. She obeyed, distracting herself for all of a few moments while she drew her sword.

Gravel showered down the slope, and Andaryn ducked into the pale circle of light. Under one arm, he was hefting something solid and unmoving and clad in leathers.

_Duergar_, Jaiyan recognized. _A very dead duergar, at that. _

Carefully, Andaryn levered the corpse onto the ground. His red eyes were narrow, his voice terse when he snapped, very quietly, "There's six of them on a ledge up there. All dead."

Jaiyan stared down at the duergar, at the long lacerations that split his belly and throat and one upper thigh. His face was grey, the lips pulled back from the teeth.

"They were taken up there?" Valen snarled.

"I think they hid and died up there," Andaryn said. "And not all that long ago. They're just…dead. Cut open."

"Anything taken?"

"No." Andaryn's teeth flashed in a grim smile. "They have their weapons, their supplies."

Any self-regarding looter would have upped and taken anything worth selling with him, Jaiyan knew. Another look at the dead duergar showed her the small, glinting jewels sunk into his belt buckle. They would be slavers, most likely, she supposed, or maybe traders, on their way back to camp. _Still doesn't mean they deserved to be carved up like last winter's roast. _

"We need to move," Andaryn said fiercely. "And quickly." He threw a sharp glance at Jaiyan. "The terrain's rougher up ahead."

She bristled, and snapped back, "I'll manage somehow, I promise."

Andaryn smirked. "I could expect nothing less of the lady who killed the Valsharess."

Valen growled, low in his throat. "Get moving."

When the drow turned, and took up his place in the lead again, Jaiyan was tempted to shout something after him. Instead, she exchanged a quick, rueful glance with Valen. She wanted to say something, to tell him that she was alright, but Andaryn motioned them off again. She followed, matching pace, and half-listening to Dakesh's light footfalls behind her.

The path sloped up, twining between leaning rock chimneys. Underfoot, the stone turned uneven, pocked with deceptively shallow holes that could trip a traveler or turn an ankle. Jaiyan threaded her way up carefully, eyes on the ground. Deep shadows slanted off the high rock columns, hiding jagged slashes in the stone. Jaiyan stumbled again, thought one of the nastier obscenities she knew, and pushed on. Her heels skidded against loose bits of stone, and even to her, the sound rang too loud. She stopped, listened to the harsh rasp of her own breathing.

Up ahead, she could see Valen and the drow, notched in silhouette. All of them halted, and she saw Valen's tail lash angrily. She advanced another step, and staggered when her boot caught against a dip in the rock.

Over her head, the air whined. She swore, out loud this time, and lurched backwards. Her sword moved, cutting through emptiness, and she wondered for a stomach-clenching moment whether she was imagining it. _Imagining the way the air's moving against your neck..? _

"Jaiyan! Get down!" Valen's voice, sharp and insistent.

She dropped to her knees, gulped when she heard the rushing sound of something above her. She locked both hands around her sword hilt, thrust up. The blade plunged in and caught, dragged her forward. She wrenched back, cried out when she lost her footing. She landed hard on her elbows, stayed prone when Valen bulled past her. His flail whipped out, smacked into flesh, and spun back dripping.

An arrow whined overhead, clanged off stone. She could hear Dakesh, shouting for help, and Deekin replying, that he would be there as soon as he could, and then fierce light bloomed as the little kobold threw a fire spell. The air whirled, heat chasing cold past her face. Something shrieked, high and shrill and like metal tearing. Jaiyan shoved up to her feet, saw Valen spinning. His flail swung out, and she saw it catch and slow and drag on empty air. Another arrow sang past her cheekbone, slamming into something solid, and dropping.

"Get _down_," Valen snarled.

She complied, dropped flat against the slope. Overhead, the darkness seemed full of screaming wind and the insidious smell of dank water. Feeling horribly useless, she held on, listening to the sickening noise of metal smacking against skin. Someone – Dakesh, she thought – cried out. The roar of another spell followed, along with Deekin muttering.

Something heavy crashed into her shoulder, pushing her over. She kept rolling, swept her sword up and vaulted up to standing in the same motion. Her back hit dry stone. She looked down the slope, saw Valen, launching himself off his feet. His flail snapped out, juddered against something. He yanked it back in close, and she saw his eyes flickering. He turned, snarled as he was shoved backwards, spoiling his balance.

"Valen," Imloth called. "Behind you. Moving!"

He spun, and Devil's Bane snapped out one-handed, juddered on impact. Still half-watching, Jaiyan gasped when something brushed against her side. She hurtled away from the rock chimney, snarled when the same solid weight cannoned into her shoulder. She swung out blindly, and her sword glanced away.

"Imloth!" Valen pivoted, drove the flail full-force and growled when it sank in. "Imloth, get her out of here!"

Jaiyan opened her mouth to protest, but the flat of her sword smacked against it again. She ducked instinctively, and thought she felt the air part above her. Talons raked across her shoulder, and she hurled herself away. Ignoring the sting, she whirled. _Too confusing_, she thought frantically. Two more arrows whipped past. She jerked back, and her heel slipped.

_Too confusing. Too dark. Can't see anything. And all you can hear is everyone else moving. Too confusing can't focus they're going to kill you……_

A firm hand closed on her wrist and she nearly screamed.

"It's me," Imloth snapped. "Stay down and come with me."

Desperately, she twisted round, saw Valen staggering back. Blood twined down his forehead, and the back of one gloved hand was soaked red. "No, Imloth, we can't…"

"We can." He hauled her away, up the slope and past Andaryn, who knelt braced and nocking another arrow.

"Imloth!" She wrenched against him, but his grip was brutally tight. "Imloth, no!"

He tugged her level with him. "Yes, and quickly, because you can't see a damn thing and you're a liability right now, and do you really think Valen wants to see you die?"

A dozen vicious retorts sprang to mind, but she stayed silent. She let Imloth steer up and over the crest, somehow keeping up as he darted past loose rocks. Behind her, she could hear the familiar noise of combat, of Deekin whispering and chanting as he called magic.

The ground fell away underfoot, and she slipped. Imloth caught her, propped her up. "Keep moving," he ordered, slightly breathless. "You're bleeding. Keep moving."

She found solid purchase on the stone again, tried to ignore the nagging thought in her head that suggested that this was all a terrible mistake. At her throat, the light stone glowed, throwing thin lines across the looming boulders. Around them, the air seemed reassuringly still, but Imloth did not slow, kept hauling her along beside him. Somewhere close by, she could hear the roaring of water against stone. Each jarring step made the light stone bounce, and the shadows wheeled. She wanted to dig her heels in and demand that he stop, turn right around, and lead her back to the others, and back to Valen.

_Get back there_, the angry, unthinking part of her mind demanded. _Get back there and help. Get back there and find out what's happening. _

But he was right, and she knew it, however much it made her simmer and want to deny it. He knew these caves and these paths, and he could lead her back, and she _knew_ she had little chance if she just bolted away from him. So she quickened her pace, and let him steer her on, towards the rushing sound of the water.


	35. Chapter 35

_The usual disclaimer applies, along with a huge thank you to everyone who is reading and following this story. Reviews are of course always welcome. _

_**Chapter Thirty-Five – Hunters**_

Valen spun, and felt the familiar, heavy pull of his flail as it caught on flesh, dug in, and ripped clean. He _thought_ he heard something thud to the ground, but between the roaring of his own heartbeat in his ears, and the whining clamour of Deekin's spells, he was not sure. Shoulders rigid, he turned, glared up and down the slope again.

Behind, Dakesh was crouching, pressing one hand against a dripping slice on his upper left arm. Nearby, unharmed, Deekin lowered his hands, left a single magelight floated beside his head. Still suspicious, Valen looked back up to where Andaryn knelt, slowly letting his bow go slack. "Anything?"

The drow shook his head. "I don't think so."

Valen swiped blood away from his eyes, and belatedly realised that the back of his right hand was gashed. They needed to clean themselves up and move on, and quickly, he knew. While Deekin bandaged Dakesh's arm, and laughed at the mercenary's snide remark about bait, Valen looked at the wide gouts of black blood on the stone. Cautiously, he prodded at a thick patch with one foot, scowled when it proved sticky. _You hit more than one of them, and you think you heard them fall. So where the hells are they?_

Kneeling, he flipped Devil's Bane round, swiped at the empty air. The haft bumped into something solid, and he narrowed his eyes. If he tried to ignore the bright point of Deekin's magelight, he thought he could see the edge of spines, and rough, scaled skin. "Deekin?"

"Yes, Goat-man?" The kobold pattered up to him. "You needs bandages too?"

"Yes. Deekin, can you see that?"

The little kobold tipped his head on one side. "Yes, but it be like trying to see stars that be too far away."

"What?"

"Well, when Deekin looks up into the sky at night sometimes, and there's stars, and some stars are very bright, and some are not…" Deekin shrugged. "And Deekin tries to see the not very bright ones, the bright ones seem to keep getting in the way."

"So it's a spell?" Valen frowned. "Why would it keep working if they're dead?"

"Might not be a spell," the kobold said. "Might be something they just do."

"That's not comforting." He scrubbed a hand across his face. Still, it meant the Seer had been right, at least on this count. _These things can die, just like anything else. But how many of them are there? _Half lost in thought, he let Deekin wrap a clean bandage around his hand, winced when the knots were tugged tight. _And you made Imloth run off into the darkness with Jaiyan, and now you're not being attacked, but they might be. _

Valen swung Devil's Bane back over his shoulder, and snapped, "Andaryn. Can you see them?"

The drow arched his eyebrows, but did not complain. He turned, vanished for a brief moment over the crest. "Nothing but dust and a few footprints."

"Then you'll follow their trail until we find them."

"I will?" Andaryn folded his arms. "_You_ sent them away. We have little time enough as is it is, and these things know the smell of your blood. I say we keep moving and let them catch up."

"_No_." Three quick strides took Valen to the top of the slope. "We find them."

The drow's eyebrows rose again, tauntingly. "You really want to waste that time? We need to move on, and now, or did you forget about Lith My'athar?"

Valen bit back the urge to simply lash out. "Of course not."

"Imloth can track, I assume," Andaryn said. "If they move quietly enough, and aren't bleeding, I'd give them a fair chance of finding us again."

_Was she bleeding? _He was not sure. He remembered hearing her cry out, more than once, but he was not at all sure. "And they'll be of far more use with _us_, safe, and helping Lith My'athar."

"You're wasting time," Andaryn said flatly. "You're asking that we change our trail entirely, and go looking for a drow who _should_ be able to follow us, and a surfacer who _you_ apparently thought needed to come with us."

Valen growled. In one smooth motion, he had Devil's Bane unslung. "Meaning?"

Still gazing up at him, Andaryn did not flinch. "Meaning she's blind, mostly useless, and should have been left behind. Killing the Valsharess in a brightly-lit room is one thing, tiefling. Fighting in the dark is entirely another, and you should have left her behind."

Without thinking, Valen lunged for the drow, and snarled when someone grabbed his arm and jerked him roughly to one side. He glared into Dakesh's dark eyes, and did not lower his flail. "Let go," he ground out. "Let go, _right now_."

Dakesh did not loosen his punishing grip on Valen's arm. "Drop the flail."

The mercenary was built lean, and all he had to do was wrench away fast enough, drive a fist into his stomach, and kick his feet out. _Then turn back, _he thought, _and convince the drow to go after them, any way you have to. _

"Goat-man!" Deekin's nose bumped against his arm. "Don't. Please."

He blinked rapidly. His head felt heavy, fogged with anger. He needed to find Jaiyan, and Imloth, and see that they were safe, and he knew that Andaryn was right. He should have made her stay, even if it meant a screaming fight, because that could be healed in the end, _anything_ except this leaden knot of fear that seemed to stop his breathing.

"Goat-man." Deekin's small hand closed alongside Dakesh's. "Drop the flail."

He shook himself, made himself look down into the kobold's face. "But I…"

"You know," Dakesh said, quietly. "I am actually slightly sympathetic right now. _But_ you have to remember that the drow you seem rather intent on beating to a pulp is also the only one of us here right now who knows where he's going. Might be prudent to leave him alive, yes?"

Something in the mercenary's unexpectedly soft voice drilled into him. _He's right, you need the drow, need the drow because even if Imloth can find the place you're looking for, he's not here, and Andaryn is, and he's been there before_. "Alright." He drew down a long, shuddering breath. "You can let go."

"Drop the flail, Valen," Dakesh said.

He obeyed, and made himself watch when Dakesh kneeled down and scooped it up. On the edge of his vision, he was aware of Andaryn, still standing idly, unperturbed.

"Finally." Andaryn sighed. "Perhaps we could agree to move on, then?"

Dakesh ran one fingertip along the flail haft. "Indeed. The quicker we move after them, the quicker we find them."

Andaryn's eyes widened. "What?"

Deekin shrugged. "Boss needs to be found. Deekin not letting Boss or Imloth be alone with monsters."

"It's impractical, dangerous, and just _asking_ for us to be attacked again." The drow's hand slid down to his sword hilt. "Either that, or we'll find them both gutted."

"Then go on alone," Valen snarled. "You're not the only one of us who knows how to track in the Underdark."

"Except, of course," Dakesh added thoughtfully, "Going on alone, you'd be the perfect target, wouldn't you? Stay with us, and you've got a better chance of one of us dying first. I know you gave Imloth maps. I'd wager with a bit of luck, he'd be able to find this death-trap cavern of yours. Rendering you perhaps not quite as useful as you'd hoped." He grinned viciously. "You know, I think this is what they call an impasse."

Andaryn's jaw clenched. "And if they're dead?"

"If they're dead, we go on as before," the mercenary answered. "And while I don't _think_ you'd be stupid enough to attack all three of us, you're a drow, so kindly get that hand away from your sword."

Watching, Valen saw the drow's rigid frame slacken slightly. With his mouth firmly set, and his eyes blazing, he turned away. "Be ready to move, then. That means no dripping blood, clean weapons, and silence."

"Valen."

Startled, Valen looked back to the mercenary. "Yes?"

"If I give this monster of a flail back, are you going to cave _my_ head in with it?"

Valen grinned wearily. "Probably not." He accepted Devil's Bane, hooked it back across his shoulders. While Dakesh checked his sword, and Andaryn paced furiously, he glanced down at Deekin again. "That was…probably not the best way to try and resolve that, was it?"

Deekin shrugged. "Nope. Worked, though."

"I just…" He had been angry, blindingly angry, and mostly at himself. "I need her back."

The kobold reached out, touched his hand. "So does Deekin."

***

Each breath sawed through Jaiyan's lungs as she ran. Her face was damp with sweat, and loose wisps of hair clung to her temples. Beside her, Imloth moved with maddening grace, his hand around her wrist as he tugged her along. Her shoulders stung, and her ankle throbbed from a jarring tumble against the ground. She could hear her own breathing, and Imloth's, much lighter, more controlled, and the insistent sound of rushing water, close by.

Twice they had stopped, thinking they were clear, and twice something had come lunging out of the darkness. The first time, Imloth flung himself past her, crashed into it, and drove his sword in to the hilt. The second time, the attack had been almost silent, and Jaiyan had come to close to panic when Imloth suddenly pitched forward. He had flipped over, shouted for her to hide, and cried out when something spun him around.

And, half hating herself, she had clutched at the light stone, shoved herself under the scooped-out blackness of a ledge and waited.

_Fingers clasped over the light stone, blocking it, listening to her own rapid breathing and the scuff and scrape of Imloth's boots against the stone. The horrible sound of him hissing in sudden pain. The clang of his sword hitting rock. Even when silence followed, she did not want to move, did not want to find out which of them was still moving. Cold stone pressed in on three sides. Her fingers were slick with sweat, and she could not decide if keeping her eyes closed or open was worse. Either way, she could see nothing, and her heart was hammering painfully hard. _

_ The air moved against her face. She slid a hand down, found her sword hilt. _

_ "It's me," Imloth whispered. _

_ "Gods above," she snapped back at him. "What is it with you and scaring the hells out of me in the dark?" _

_ "It's dead." _

_ She eased out from under the ledge, loosened her grip on the light stone. She saw blood, and little else. "Where is it, then?"_

_ "Here." He kicked at something, and though she _saw _his foot impact against it, she could not quite make it out. _

_ She shook her head. "I can't quite…it makes my head hurt." _

_ He smiled, took a step, and swayed. "Oh." _

_ "Oh?" She caught him, and immediately felt the hot spread of blood across his shoulder. "You're hurt, you idiot." She scrabbled in her pack for a healing potion. "Drink this, and then I'll wrap you up." _

She had cleaned his armour as well, at least, the best she could with poor light and little time. After forcing another healing potion down his throat, they had moved on at a demanding pace. Covering the rough terrain quickly, and winding a zig-zagging path between clusters of high boulders, they ran wordlessly. By the time Imloth let her slow down, she was gulping down air and cursing the burning ache in her legs. She had no clue of how much distance they had crossed, or how far from the others they might be, and that ignorance rankled.

To the right, the ground slanted up again. Motioning for her to keep close, Imloth crept up, past a jagged column. She could hear water, harsh and loud. When he stopped, crouching low, she peered past his shoulder. Beneath them, the stone dropped away sharply, jagged and dark and wet. Below, water plunged and seethed, crashing white against high pillars of stone.

"Imloth?"

He nodded slowly. "I know. She spoke of a river, and…"

"What does it mean?"

"I don't know." He frowned. "I'm sorry. She didn't know."

Jaiyan stared down at the rushing, dark water and tried not to worry. "Well, if it meant we were both about to die horrible deaths, surely she'd've foreseen it?"

"Whatever I say to that is not going to be reassuring."

"I know." She scuffed a foot against the stone. She had no wish to linger, not with the river frothing below them, and Valen somewhere behind them. "Should we go back?"

"Yes." He tipped his head to one side. "Jaiyan…do you hear that?"

She shook her head. "All I hear is the water."

His face stayed grim. "We're too exposed. We need to move." He looked down the slope, then up, at the arching stone overhead. "Can you swim?"

"What? I am _not_ jumping in there."

"I'm not asking you to," he snapped back. "I need you to climb down. Hide."

"While you do what? Stand here and _hope_ you can take them?"

"Get down there and do as I say."

"No." As angry, she glowered right back at him. "If I lose you, I'm lost. I won't know…you have to come with me."

He opened his mouth again, and she heard it, the scrape of loose gravel, close by. She could see little beyond the small pool of brightness from the light stone. _That's not Valen,_ she thought desperately. _Valen would sound like actual footsteps. _

She grabbed Imloth's wrist and tugged. "Come on!"

A shuffling, awkward movement took her over the edge, hauling him behind her. She scrambled down, hands sliding over wet stone. Her heels slipped, and she leaned against Imloth. He was braced easily, his back flat to the rock. She glanced down, noticed that they stood on a ledge maybe a foot wide. This close to the river, the air was full of spray, and the water surged past, cresting against smooth boulders.

_It's moving too fast to have anything in it that could jump out and bite,_ she thought, slightly frantic. _Which means if you fall in, you won't get eaten, but you might split your head open. Or drown. Stop thinking, now. _

She looked at Imloth, saw him shake his head. His eyes flicked up, and she understood. She closed her free hand over the light stone, dropped it inside her collar, and waited. Tried to hear beneath the roar of the river. Flung-up spray touched her cheeks, her hair. Long, painful heartbeats crept past, and she wondered if screaming might make her feel a little better, or at least scare away whatever might be crawling around on the bank above.

She felt Imloth pry his fingers away from hers. She heard the low, steely sound of him very carefully drawing his sword. He leaned in, close enough that his lips moved against her ear, and murmured, "Press yourself back and hold on."

Jaiyan dug her fingertips against the slick stone. The ledge seemed too narrow, too precarious. Loose bits of rock showered down from above, and she bit her lip. The air shifted, damp against her closed eyelids, and she heard Imloth moving. His sword whined up, smacked against something solid. He cried out, startled, and she told herself she _had_ to keep herself silent. Imloth's boots slid against the stone, and she heard him gasp. _He's losing his footing and you have to _do_ something. _Jaiyan gritted her teeth, tugged the light stone out of her collar. Imloth hissed and jerked away, dragging a hand up to shield his eyes. His sword snapped up again, the blade sinking in.

The thing above him wrenched away, slithering back up. Imloth tried to heave back, tried to clear his sword. He had nowhere near enough room to move, and his impetus was thrusting him forward too far. She grabbed his shoulder, yanked him back. Above her, the air changed, pushed against her face. Imloth groaned, and his right hand juddered open. She lunged up, grasped his sword hilt.

"Need to…" He sucked down a shaky breath. His armour was carved open along his right shoulder. "Jaiyan…"

She dragged the sword free, and hot blood showered down. It screeched, high and shrill and painful. Something heavy and thick slammed into her side, sweeping her away from the ledge. Jaiyan scrabbled back, reached blindly for Imloth. Her fingers hooked on his arm. She kicked out madly, touched nothing but empty air. She managed to swear, once, before they plummeted, and the river swallowed them.

She surfaced, gasping. _Where the hell was it? You heard it fall with you. Something heavy, plunging into the water alongside you_. _Was it still alive? _

Her hair coated her eyes, and she swiped it aside angrily. The water tasted dank, somehow oily. Another swell rolled past. She kicked around, gauged the distance to the bank. "Imloth?"

"I'm here." He sounded ragged, somewhere behind her in the darkness. "Keep moving."

"Where is it?"

"It's dead."

"You're sure?"

"I'm not about to go swimming for it," he snarled. "It fell with us. I don't see it now."

The light stone dangled from her neck, bobbing when she struck out for the overhang nearby. She caught it with one hand, tried to heave herself up. The river crested over her head, left her spluttering. Her second attempt failed, gave her nothing but scraped fingers and a mouthful of rank water.

"Weapon belt," Imloth snapped.

She reached down, somehow managed to find the buckle. She wrestled her belt off, kept her hand locked around it. The current rushed underneath, caught the end of the scabbard. She swore, hauled it above the surface. With Imloth balancing her, she pitched it up and over, heard it hit the stone above. She helped him with his bow and quiver first, and shivered when another wave pushed them against the side. His daggers followed, along with his sword belt, and then they were drifting, caught again and pulled away from the side.

"Imloth!" Jaiyan reached out, grasped his hand, slipped away from him again. "Imloth!"

He launched forward, propelling her towards the bank. "Reach out for it!"

She swung up madly, caught the wet edge of the stone. The water roared past, and her left hand slid, almost fell. Imloth shoved, and she heaved, and then her knees cleared the surface, and she was crawling onto a ledge, sodden.

There was no time to think, no time to notice how her leathers clung to her, how she must stink of the river. She saw Imloth flail, and the water rolled, swamped him. _Got a vicious current,_ she thought. _Right down the middle and pulling. and he was hurt and bleeding. _She dropped to her knees, stared wildly at the churning surface. The water was black and topped with foam, and the light stone showed her nothing more useful than a spot of dancing brightness.

"Imloth?" _Where is he? _"Oh, hells." She waited a moment longer, feeling cold water running past her eyelids. "Stupid drow."

Not giving herself time to think about it, Jaiyan dived back off the ledge. The enveloping coldness of the river shocked the breath from her lungs. She forced her eyes open, saw murky darkness, and the blurred light from the stone. And Imloth, a hazy shape beneath her, facedown and drifting, his white hair unreeling behind him. She stroked back up, broke the surface and gulped down air.

Sending a quick prayer to Tymora, she kicked down, and her grasping fingers brushed his shoulder. The current swirled on beneath her, and she thrashed against it. Reached out desperately when the water pushed him further. Her hand snagged against his collar. Another fierce kick, and she locked an arm around his neck, the other snaking around his waist.

Her chest was aching, and her ears were full of the sound of the river. Imloth sank against her. _He's not heavy_, she thought, close to frantic_. Get him _up_ there. _ She drove herself upward, holding Imloth against her, his head tipped back against her shoulder. She breached the surface, gasped down a breath that was half river, half air. Coughing, she tried to jolt Imloth's head level. Water ran out between his lips, but he did not stir. _He's got sopping wet leathers on,_ she admonished herself. _No way you'd be able to feel anything. _

Still, she needed to get him out of the water, and fast. She shoved upward, grasped the edge of the overhang. Her fingers cramped and almost gave way. The water gushed past, nearly tearing Imloth away from her. Jaiyan swore out loud, and hauled upward. She ended up propped precariously, her shoulders and one arm clear of the river, and Imloth dangling on her other side. The hand locked around his belt was slowly turning numb, and she did not fancy her chances if she dropped him.

She kicked out at the stone, and her boots scraped and held. Another punishing heave, and her knees were on dry ground, the drow still with her. She ached everywhere, and was already certain she would find impressive bruises later. Groaning, she managed the last step, yanking Imloth clear of the edge and onto the ground.

He was on his hands and knees, trembling all over. By the light of the stone, she could see that his skin looked almost grey, and was horribly cold when she touched him. "Imloth? Imloth, you need to breathe."

A tremor ripped through him, and he twisted away from her. She heard his wet, wrenching cough when he gasped. She propped him up, pushed his hair aside when he threw up thick, dark water. "Imloth?"

His gaze lifted, eyes rolling and confused. His mouth moved, and he shook his head.

She nodded, just held him as another spasm racked him. "It's alright. You're alright. I've got you."

He drew in an unsteady, whistling kind of breath. "Thank you," he managed. "I remember…the river?"

"Yes. I pulled you out. You're damn heavy, for a drow."

He smiled weakly. "You saved me."

"Could hardly leave you there." She rocked back on her heels, shrugged. "You're the only one of us who knows where we're going."

"I feel so appreciated." He was shaking uncontrollably, his hair sticking in thick hanks to his chin and neck.

"Oh, gods, you're going to freeze. Everything's wet."

"Fine," he said, thickly. "Just need to…the others. Find the others."

Briskly, she found his weapons, buckled them back on. Her own sword followed, balanced reassuringly at her hip. Belatedly, she realised that their packs were soaked, but there was no time to check the supplies. More worrying was the slippery, uneven slope back up the river bank. _Focus on Imloth, _she thought. _Get him moving and breathing, then we can worry about climbing back up. _"Imloth? Come on. I've got you."

He nodded, grasped her fingers, his own icy and pebbled and still wet. He tried to stand, and groaned when his knees gave way. She caught him, said nothing when he retched again.

"I'm sorry." He was still unsteady, but he managed his next step without stumbling.

"Don't be. You nearly drowned, so at least you've got an excuse. You should have seen me at Hilltop, three years or so ago, for Mischa's birthday. I vowed never again to get quite so stupid drunk, then did it all over again at Midsummer. You should've seen the mess I made behind the tavern."

He laughed, rasping and exhausted. "You're so charming."

"Hey, I just went drow-fishing," Jaiyan protested mildly. "You have to be nice to me."

***

Following Andaryn's lean, darting shape, Valen gripped his flail harder and wondered again just _what _the hells might have happened. The trail led on ahead, criss-crossing sharply past high columns. Even if Imloth had been pushing hard, even if they were chased, _why_ had they come this far? Somewhere behind, they had discovered dark blood pooled across the stone, and the scuffed marks of sliding footsteps. The skin between his shoulders was tight, and he was counting every thumping beat of his heart. _If they did not hurry, if they did not get there in time_….

Valen gritted his teeth, pushed on. Shadowing him, Dakesh kept pace, easily and silently, he had to admit. Deekin scurried alongside, his wings furled in, and his head down as he ran.

Around him, the darkness was strangely quiet, hollow somehow. Fitfully, he recalled blundering through the Underdark that very first time, when he had known only that he needed to find the Seer, and her city, and sanctuary. The caves and tunnels and echoing, open spaces had not been this deadened, this silent, he was sure. He remembered bolting, and hunger, and blood showering against the stone. _Duergar, _he thought. _Duergar raiders and drow. Other creatures. Things you killed. Things you had to kill. Not this silence._

Andaryn held up a hand, motioned sharply.

Valen's tail lashed. He swallowed back his instinctive urge to snarl something at the drow, and obeyed instead. "What?"

"Listen," the drow murmured.

Valen tipped his head to one side. He could still hear the roaring of water, thundering close by. He had been vaguely aware of it for some time now, and he wondered if Imloth had led them towards it to perhaps hide beneath its noise. _Or had been chased_, he thought darkly. "And?"

"And it's going to make me deaf."

"The trail?"

"Towards the water."

Valen did not look away from the drow. "Then we follow."

For a long moment, Andaryn held his gaze. Without speaking, he nodded once, spun on his heel. Flitted past another huge, curving rock, and up the sloping ground. Valen growled, followed him with wide, wary strides. He needed the drow close, _knew_ he could not hope to see as far in the darkness. He was tempted to snap out an order to slow down, but the roaring of the river was deceptive enough as it was. _Don't want to announce our arrival to anything that might be lurking. _

Beneath his feet, the ground was sticky with drying blood. The smell invaded his mouth and nose, thick and cloying. _Not human blood. Not even drow blood. _He pushed on, grimly noticed how sharply the crest of the slope fell away. Uneven, jagged rock, ending in a swirl of rushing water, filled with the gods knew what. Looking down, he saw crescent patterns in the dust, ending where the bank dropped down to the river.

His fingers clenched around his flail. He wanted to scream her name, shout it over and over until the echoes reached her and she heard him. She was somewhere, he _knew_. _They were on foot, and stopped to fight at least twice. They can't have gone that far. _

Andaryn's hand brushed his elbow, and he wrenched away. "_What?_"

The drow jerked his chin at a high, smooth boulder. He signed something that Valen thought he recognised as _hiding_.

He needed to wait, needed to learn what the drow actually _meant_. _What was hiding? Jaiyan and Imloth? More monsters? Something else? _

_ No, _he thought. _You've wasted enough time. Get moving. _

He pushed past, ignored the drow's startled glare. Another two steps took him past the boulder, and a sudden flare of light stabbed into his vision. The flat of a sword snagged against his flail haft, and he heard Jaiyan whisper, "_Valen?_"

He squinted. "Yes…?"

"Oh gods…Valen." She lowered her sword. "I didn't…I heard, but I didn't think…"

He blinked again. He wanted to ask what the hells she thought she was doing, giving herself away like that, letting the light stone show. And where the hells had she been, in any case, and where was Imloth? He opened his mouth, looked at her, and the words died on his lips. "Are you alright?"

She nodded. "Imloth's here. He's…he's been hurt. He'll be alright."

"I…" He growled and wrapped his arms around her. "You're sure?"

Jaiyan sighed, relaxed against his chest. "He's got a gash down the side of his shoulder, and he tried to drink a whole river, but he'll be alright."

He laughed and did not let go, only held her tighter, lifting her off her feet. "I meant you."

She buried her head against his neck. "I'm alright." She kissed the side of his face. "Took your time, didn't you, tiefling?"

He was vaguely aware of Andaryn, and Dakesh, and then the kobold hopping past him. Deekin asking questions, and Imloth responding in a tired, rasping voice. "You ran," he managed. "What happened?"

"Imloth nearly drowned. And I hid under a rock."

His fingers found the straggling, damp ends of her hair, stroked. "While he nearly drowned?"

"No. Before." She burrowed deeper under his chin. "Deekin?"

"Your bard is fine." Reluctantly, Valen let her back down onto her feet. "I shouldn't've done that. Ordered you to go."

Jaiyan shook her head. "Valen…"

"No, I…" Cupping her face in both hands, he kissed her deeply. "I think we should stay together. It was a mistake. Stay together?"

She sighed against his mouth, and he felt her hands slide up and tangle in his hair. "Yes," she said, softly. "Stay together."


	36. Chapter 36

_**Chapter Thirty-Six - Threshold**_

Slowly, almost reluctantly, the Seer surfaced from sleep. She reached out, tried to find Imloth. But her fingers only brushed the warm, rumpled sheets, and she remembered. Imloth was not here; he was somewhere far away, and had been, for days. Nine nights ago, her dreams and her head had been filled with the roaring of water, and she had woken gasping and trying to breathe. She rolled over, swung her legs out of the bed, shivered when her bare feet touched the cold stone floor. Halfway across the room, near where her robes hung, something prickled down her spine. She dressed quickly, yanked the knots tight. Last night, she had retired after leaving Nathyrra on her way to the walls, and her prayers had been swift and slightly anxious.

Three days ago, a small scout group had discovered two dozen duergar, all slaughtered and stripped of weapons and supplies. Despite her assurances that they _probably _had died as normal a death as the Underdark would allow, the guards at the city walls sat hunched behind the crenellations, bowstrings tight and nerves ragged.

For almost the first time since she had fled her mother's palaces, the Seer was tempted – _terribly, terribly tempted_ – to simply lie and tell them that it would be alright, that their unseen enemy was contained and beaten back.

She raked a comb through her hair, pulled at the long, tangled strands viciously.

She needed him back, and soon, and that aching truth made her feel worse than weak.

_"Never depend," her mother said, coldly, clinically. "Unless it is on yourself, your own powers, and your own strength."_

_ "Matron Mother…"_

_ "No," her mother cut across her. "Do not depend on your sisters, or me, or any male, within our house or without. Do not."_

Simple, aloof words from a cruel mistress, and she knew that, but even so, she wondered if she had let him in too close.

_No. Not too close. Not close _enough_. _

Firmly, she forced her thoughts blank, and busied herself with pinning her hair up. A braid at each temple, spun back and twisted, and the thick, soft section at the back of her head simply gathered and trapped. Some months ago, she had discovered that Imloth enjoyed helping her with this simple, everyday ritual, so she let him, loving the way his fingers ran through hair as he fondly teased the white tresses into place. She often returned the favour, twining his hair with small bits of leather, keeping it back off the sharp angles of his face. _Stop thinking_, she commanded herself. _This brings nothing but anguish. _

Outside the temple, she discovered the streets quiet, the guards at the corners staring down at the ground. Every day she quartered the city, every day she spent time at the tavern, the scouts' quarters, the big old forge, the temple, the practise field. Usually with Nathyrra at her side, and usually bringing nothing more than words of support and compassion. There was something cold growing in her city, and every day she felt it. _In the stares of scouts and soldiers and priestesses, in the silences that followed. A coldness she had not felt since the city stood beaten back and at the mercy of the Valsharess' decisions. _

With knife-sharp clarity, she remembered the vision of the surfacer girl, how her prayers had been upended into a whirl of colour and certainty. A name, a face, a past, and the promise of a future, and how _safe _and _soothing_ it had seemed.

But now she had no such vision of hope, and no Valen, growling orders at surly young drow recruits, and no obvious enemy.

_And no Imloth_, some sly thought prodded.

Halfway to the walls, her pace quickened. She could see the guards, most of them turned away from the crenellations, and even from here, she could hear raised voices. Someone snarled something about stupid choices, and Nathyrra retorted, declaring her own actions to be only for the good of the city and its people. The Seer recognized Olortyr's high, taunting tones in response, demanding to know why their Matron Mother had been demoted to patrolling walls.

"Enough," the Seer snapped.

Poised on the steps above, Olortyr folded her arms. "Mother Seer, we…"

"Be silent," she said, as clipped. She ignored Olortyr, looked instead at Nathyrra, standing coiled nearby. Her jaw was clenched, and the set of her shoulders was rigid. "Explain yourself."

Nathyrra's eyes narrowed. "I was merely checking weapons, as agreed."

"Not generally a subject that tends towards violent argument."

"Perhaps our Matron Mother is feeling somewhat tense," Olortyr suggested idly. "Her pet is away, after all, and likely not to return. I can't imagine who else she'd be able to cajole into bed."

Nathyrra's right hand dropped to her belt. The Seer caught her wrist, sank her fingers in. "_Don't_."

Olortyr grinned. "Back on _such_ a short leash, Matron Mother."

Nathyrra shook herself free, unsheathed a dagger. "Say that again. _Please_."

_The city needed to be held, and they were fighting? And fighting like two young, brash females who had no notion of what responsibility truly meant? _Almost unconsciously, the Seer's mind went flat with anger. Between one heartbeat and the next, she called a halo of white flame around one fist.

Nathyrra shied away, one hand swinging up to break the sudden glare. "Seer, you don't…"

"Oh, I understand," she said, calm and cold and pitched loud enough that she _knew_ the guards above could hear. "You were provoked, and you responded. How could you – _both_ of you – be quite so foolish?"

Olortyr vaulted down the steps. "And why not? Every decision she had made has led us further into ruin."

"Rebuilding? Forging weapons and armour? Trading?" Nathyrra's hand locked around her dagger again. "_Every_ decision?"

"Stand down, Nathyrra," the Seer ordered. "Stand down."

"Yes," Olortyr said. "Back away, like you've been told. Or would you kill someone else beside these gates?"

"And _you_," the Seer said, icily. "Keep your mouth closed."

Olortyr swung round, red eyes furious. "_You_ abandoned us, Mother Seer! Why else would this happen? Why else would Eilistraee desert us, and a stranger hold sway over our Matron Mother, and too many drow die?"

"Eilistraee has _not_ deserted us."

"Then why else would you leave?" Something broke through Olortyr's voice, something raw and frightened.

_A flood of moonlight through open curtains, blazing a cold line across rough floorboards. Downstairs, the tavern hummed with the noise of patrons and conversation and someone singing raucously. On the bed, Imloth lay propped up on one elbow, smiling slowly as he watched her dance. "You're beautiful." _

_ She paused, returning his smile. "And you are a flatterer." _

_ "Not if it's true." _

_ She turned again, flicked her hair across her shoulders. "Foolish male." _

_ "I don't hear _too_ many complaints."_

_ She laughed, lifted both hands, cupping the moonlight. She pirouetted, deliberately pushing her shoulders back, and heard his appreciative murmur. "No complaints at all. Imloth?"_

_ "Mmm…yes?" _

_ "Come here." _

"Eilistraee…" For a brief, terrible moment, the words froze in her throat. "Eilistraee commands her followers to seek the surface. To see the moon, and dance in her light."

"To see this city fall?" Olortyr shook her head fiercely. "Fall under _her _command?"

On her left, the Seer saw Nathyrra's whole frame go taut. She knew – oh, Eilistraee, _how she knew_ – the shame and the terrible guilt that racked her. But she could not afford more bloodshed, not with the guards all watching, not with the city in such precarious danger. Was that not why she had kept herself apart, alone, all these many long years? Because the city was not her, or her passions, or her desires, but a refuge that _needed_ to last?

Nathyrra's dagger flashed as she launched past, and Olortyr's sword rang out in response.

White light cracked from the Seer's hands, jolting them apart. A follow-up spell swelled and screamed, and she was very aware of the drow on the walls above. Turning, aiming, bowstrings pulling taut. "Stand down," the Seer snapped. "Both of you. Remove your weapons."

Folded half over, breathing hard, Nathyrra glared. "After you."

"Do it," the Seer said, coldly. "Or I will _make_ you do it."

Nathyrra's eyes flashed. Her hand loosened on the hilt, and the dagger dropped. Silently, she unbuckled her belt, let that fall as well. "May I leave, Mother Seer?"

"No." Calmly, she nodded at Olortyr. "Go on."

The other drow obeyed, slowly and pointedly. "As you wish it."

"Now," the Seer said. "I am _very_ tempted to order you both hauled off in chains." Over Nathyrra's splutter of outrage, she added, "I will _not_ have petty arguments escalate into violence so quickly, and so foolishly. Not here, and certainly not now. Take yourselves down to the practise fields if you must, but understand, I will condone _nothing_ that threatens what little stability we have left. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," Nathyrra said, sullen.

"We need only hold out, and wait." The Seer pressed long fingers against her temples. "Now. You will both stay with me, and we will walk the walls. Do you understand me?"

Olortyr nodded slowly. Her eyes flickered beneath thick white lashes. "Yes, Mother Seer."

She looked across to Nathyrra, saw how her jaw was clenched, her shoulder rigid. She wanted to touch the young female's hand, or her arm, anything to reassure, to gently comfort as she might once have done, so simply. But she was enough of a target, shaken and angry and _just_ unbowed, and the Seer had no wish to single her out further. "Nathyrra? Do you understand?"

Nathyrra's head jerked up. "Yes. I understand."

****

Beneath her leathers, Jaiyan ached. A newly-knitting gash tracked the length of her calf, still twinging as she walked. The inside of her left forearm throbbed, striped with bruises, and forced mostly out of her mind once she realised how few healing potions they still carried. Deekin knew a handful of healing spells, and could bandage a wound well and quickly, but even so, they needed to save the potions for when she feared they would need them. Most days, they marched at a grueling pace, following the drow while they flitted ahead. There had been more ambushes, half-unseen attackers whirling out of the shadows, desperately pushed back and defeated, or else chased away. Less than a day past, Valen had ploughed into two of them, and the punishing strokes of his flail had swept both out of the air fast enough that even Andaryn had grunted something about decent reaction speed.

The darkness pressed in close on all sides, and Jaiyan wondered how long it might be until they saw the sun again. _Forget the sun,_ she thought sourly. _Right now I'd settle for decent torches, and real conversation, and maybe air that moves. _

The path wound between narrow rock walls, stifling and grim. She remembered seeing crystal clusters, a long time ago, travelling with Valen, and scooped-out caves and high, echoing caverns, and _life_.

_Even if it was ilithid slavers and vampires and drow raiders_, she thought. _Still not like this. _Not dry and bare and dead. She wondered again how far down they were, how many leagues of rock weighed down above them, and shivered.

Beside her, Valen slid his hand through hers. "Are you alright?" he murmured.

The glow from the light stone made his face look shadowed and pale, and near exhausted. "Yes," she answered, as quietly. "I was thinking about when we were wandering around down here and found that dracolich."

He rolled his eyes. "I needed to hear that. Thank you."

She grinned. "You're welcome."

Imloth motioned them silent, and Jaiyan reluctantly let her hand drop from the tiefling's. With the light stone nestled inside her collar, the darkness seemed heavy, the stone solid and unyielding. The day – or the night, or whichever, since she could no longer tell – wandered on, mercifully free of nothing more testing that a short sprint down a shale slope and a scramble past a jutting outcrop. Dinner was finished quickly again, a small meal of dry, bland rations, eaten while huddled inside a long, curving alcove that Andaryn apparently considered a decent enough cave.

When Valen stood watch, facing out into the impenetrable blackness, Jaiyan left the others and joined him. Wordlessly sat in front of him, pushed his knees apart, and leaned back against his chest. "Your armour's cold."

He settled an arm around her waist. "If we're attacked, how exactly do you expect me to protect you if you're in front of me?"

"You'll manage. I have faith."

He chuckled, pressed a kiss to the back of her head. "You're going to sleep soon."

"Slave-driver."

"I need you rested and alert. Imloth will have my head otherwise."

"That's right. Blame Imloth."

His arm tightened around her. "I'm worried."

She turned, leaned her cheek against his breastplate, and almost immediately changed her mind. "About Imloth."

"Yes."

Since the river, the drow had pushed them hard, had knocked back Valen's insistence that they spend half a day or so waiting for him to recover a little more. More than once, the tiefling had forcibly pushed Imloth's share of the food into his hands, and threatened to not leave him alone until he ate properly.

"He's tough," Jaiyan said quietly. "He'll be alright."

"The Seer saw the river. What if…"

"Stop," she cut across him firmly. "We don't know what else she's seen since then, or what she hasn't seen. Wondering about that is enough to make my head hurt. Besides, terrible as it sounds, I'm rather glad it was Imloth who fell in the river with me and not you."

Valen snorted. "That's nice."

"You can't swim," she pointed out archly. "I don't think I could've pulled you out, armour and all. You're rather solid."

Behind her, he stayed silent, kissed the crown of her head again.

"Soon as we're somewhere safer, we're finding a nice, safe, normal river, and I'm teaching you."

"I look forward to nearly drowning under your masterful direction."

She considered elbowing him, remembered the armour, and decided against it. "Faithless tiefling."

He pushed her braid over her shoulder and murmured against the back of her neck, "Hardly. You need to go to sleep, my love."

Jaiyan twisted around in his arms. "Bribe me?"

He laughed, and captured her mouth slowly with his own. "Suitable?"

"It'll do." She grinned at him and wished again that they were alone, and not sitting on cold stone. "Don't forget to wake Dakesh later. I'm not the only one who needs to sleep."

Unwillingly, she dragged herself away from him, after allowing herself a last, teasing kiss. Stepping around the drow, she discovered Deekin, swathed in a blanket and snoring softly, his nose pillowed on one folded arm. Jaiyan grinned and dug her own blankets out of her pack. She recalled how cold the Anauroch had been on those clear, star-brilliant nights, and how she had huddled as near as she could to the tiny kobold. Still smiling, she crawled under the covers and curled herself close to Deekin, and eventually fell asleep half listening to him breathing.

****

Deekin woke to unrelenting darkness and unmoving air. Underneath, he could taste dry rock and blood and sweat. Drow fear, hidden like a dagger up a sleeve, because he knew drow did not speak of such things. They slept lightly, both of them; he could hear it in the soft, shallow way they breathed. He turned over carefully, saw Boss behind him, wrapped up to her nose in her blankets. Her eyes were closed tightly, and both her hands were clenched against the stone. On her other side, Goat-man lay facing away, but Deekin noticed how his tail was curved over Boss's waist, on top of the blankets.

Cautiously, Deekin padded past them, stepped around the two drow. He found Dakesh where the stone curved close overhead. The tiefling was sitting slightly awkwardly, knees drawn up, and the overhang almost touching the dark mop of his hair. "Dakesh?"

The mercenary turned. "Not sleeping well either?"

He shrugged. "Nope. Not really."

"I don't blame you." Dakesh raked a hand through his unkempt hair. In the thick, swallowing shadow, he looked tired and drawn, the lines under his cheekbones severe. "Remind me about the part when I thought this was a good idea."

Deekin snorted. "Adventuring not about good ideas."

Dakesh shifted to one side, giving him room enough to hop up and sit. "Sometimes I think it was easier when I was just following orders."

"Deekin spent most of his life following orders. Kobold orders. Old Master orders. Not much fun, when Deekin thinks about it."

Dakesh stared out into the darkness. His hands were clasped over his knee, white and long and latched together. "What was the first thing you killed?"

The kobold tipped his head on one side. "Deekin see things die long time before Deekin killed anything. But when Deekin met Boss, Deekin have to kill other kobolds. Kobolds that tried to kill Boss and Deekin."

"So you killed one of your own kind."

"Yep."

"I killed a human. A man. A young man." Dakesh stared down at his hands. "He was another slave of my master's, and my master wanted a performance, preferably one with blood. So I killed him."

"Who was Dakesh's master?"

"Some slave trader. A demon."

"Blood Wars slave trader?" Deekin asked quietly.

"Not really. He sold women, mostly." Dakesh's mouth opened in a tight, vicious smile. "The story went that he found them easier to control. Easier to break. We all thought he just enjoyed it more. Men and male tieflings he passed along to his friends."

There was something cold in the tiefling's voice, something that reminded Deekin of Goat-man again, of how every word was bitten off, of how that smile was not really a smile. "Friends?"

"He sold me, along with around sixteen other tieflings. We were to be made battle slaves, and when we got to his friend's fortress, a lot of the others…well, they didn't want to be made battle slaves. So they were killed."

"And you?" Deekin asked.

"Kept my mouth shut." He shrugged. "Sometimes you have to survive."

"Friend of master's." Deekin flicked his tongue against his teeth. He did not want to ask, but there was something about the way the tiefling's head was bowed, about the way his very dark eyes were narrowed. "Azraleth. Yes?"

"I'm that obvious, am I?"

"Nope. Deekin just listens well."

Dakesh laughed. "Apparently. Look, it was a long time ago, and the bastard's dead in any case. Your friends made sure of that."

"Worked for him?"

"Me? No. Not directly." The mercenary shook his head. "He kept me for a time and sold me on. That's how Sigil works. Your watch, kobold."

Deekin could smell it again, that thick tang that made him think of steel in a forge. Beneath his clothes, Dakesh's shoulders were stiff, and the hand around his sword hilt was bleached white at his knuckles. "Dakesh?"

Halfway past him, the mercenary paused. "Yes?"

"Deekin glad you're here."

****

Jaiyan stared at Imloth's long white hair and wondered for about the fourteenth time how keeping it almost loose and in thick waves down his back was neither annoying nor potentially life-threatening in combat. More than a few times, Drogan had cautioned both herself and Mischa to braid theirs back, and pin it as well, or better yet, just hack it all off or wear a damn helmet. But most drow males she had seen wore their hair long, and she found herself idly wondering if it was a strange point of their custom to not grab at one's opponent's long tresses in the middle of a fight. The ground dropped away in front of her, and she swore under her breath when she swayed, caught her balance raggedly.

Beside her, Valen cupped her elbow, steadied her. "Day-dreaming?" he murmured.

"Mmm. About drow hair," she whispered back before she could think better of it.

He blinked. "Do I want to know?"

She grinned, a little sheepishly. "Sorry. I just…" She gestured at Imloth, prowling ahead of them with slow, measured steps. "How does it not get in his face all the time?"

Valen smirked. "If we survive this, I might ask him that myself."

"_If_ we survive? What 'if'? We always survive impossible odds."

Up ahead, matching pace with Imloth, Andaryn swung round. "Why is it," he hissed, "that surfacers can _never_ seem to keep their mouths closed?"

Jaiyan nodded slowly. "Sorry."

"We're close," the drow said coldly, quietly. "Very close."

Her stomach twisted. "Close?"

Andaryn's mouth curved into a cruel smile. "Half a day's march, and I can show you where Saerith met her end. Until then, I'd advise you to keep your mouth shut and your thoughts to yourself."

Feeling chastened, and slightly chagrined, Jaiyan bit the inside of her cheek and pushed on. Beside her, Valen's long, easy strides were reassuring, and whenever his tail brushed against the back of her legs, she smiled. He helped her scramble up a long, uneven slope, reached down and pulled her up carefully. He _had_ to know she could have managed it herself, and easily, but still, she enjoyed the way his hands lingered against hers. By the time Imloth called the mid-afternoon – or whatever it was – halt, the inside of her leathers felt slick with sweat, her hair a clammy pile on the back of her head. She watched Andaryn as he pushed past the others and perched on a low, flat boulder, irritatingly elegant, with his hands folded loosely over his knees. She was tempted to snap something spiteful, but the clenched set to his jaw and the level, piercing way he stared off into the darkness persuaded her otherwise.

Instead, she unslung her pack, rummaged around until her fingers closed over the neck of the brandy bottle. She hauled it out, past folded shirts and wrapped soap and weapon oil. She wrestled with the cork, and then the sharp sting of the brandy flooded her throat. She _knew_ she should stopper the bottle again, shove it back into her pack, but the sudden slam of it into her belly calmed her. Another long swallow, and another, and a third, and the prickling in the small of her back dissipated.

Valen's hand closed over hers, gently. He shook his head. "Stop. Please."

She wanted to snarl at him that she was just settling her nerves and her stomach, but grudgingly, she knew he was right. She summoned up a rueful smile, and then nearly shrieked when Dakesh leaned in and pilfered the brandy. The mercenary shot her an evil grin before lifting the bottle to his lips.

"Bastard." Jaiyan sighed and glanced up at Valen. "Sorry."

He smiled. "Come and eat something."

"Smoked rothe before certain death. Sounds tempting."

Imloth motioned them on quickly afterwards, while Jaiyan cursed the throbbing in her left calf and the way her pack was digging against her spine. Stolidly walking alongside Valen, she tried to let her mind wander, tried to think of something lighter and happier than the close press of damp stone and the insistent, dank taste that seemed to cling to her tongue.

Hours slipped past, measured in the rhythmic snap of heels against the stone and the way each breath grew laboured in her throat. How far had they come, she wondered, and how deep did this path lead?

On both sides, the high walls of the ravine melted away. Overhead, the darkness was blank and close, and she could not hope to guess how high this cavern might be. Underfoot, the ground seemed curiously thick, pulling at her boots like damp soil after a fresh burst of rain. But the smell invading her nose and mouth was nothing natural, and she suddenly had no wish to look down and see just _what_ they might be walking on. The light stone jolted against her collar, and she stared ahead desperately. Saw Andaryn as he paused, red eyes narrow and terse. He looked an inch from bolting, all whipcord poise and shallow breaths.

Valen's hand wrapped around hers, big and square and comforting. She gripped his fingers hard, held on through the next half-dozen, careful steps.

Andaryn lifted a hand, motioned briskly. Jaiyan followed his gaze, and her heart lurched. A high, narrow outcropping rose up nearby, the edge sharp and dark. Carved deep, she could see curling shapes, odd runes that swirled across the old stone and disappeared into the blackness. She remembered the Seer's words, and how drained and exhausted she had seemed, after her vision. Past the outcrop, she saw the light flutter across something high and slender and white. Not rock, she realised, but the thin, reaching shape of bone, ivory and gleaming. She looked across the cavern, saw more, ghost-pale and slender, and arching up, by far taller than her, taller than Valen. She tried to make sense of the pattern, the shape of them as they speared upwards, but the light was too poor, and her heart was hammering.

She swallowed, became aware that Valen was guiding her onward, under the high, curving expanse of the bones. _What had they come from_, she wondered_, and why the hells were they still here, laid out like this, all picked clean and so white? _

Andaryn swung round, serpent-fast, and she flinched. His eyelids flickered, and she could see sweat beading at his temples. "We're here, yes?" she managed, low and shaken. "This is the place."

"Yes," he said. "We're here."


	37. Chapter 37

_**Chapter Thirty-Seven – Shadows  
**_

Jaiyan wrapped a hand around her sword hilt and tried to ignore the heavy knot that seemed to have lodged in her belly. She was aware of every hitching breath, the sting of sweat on her eyelids, the way her shoulders were tight. Every frayed nerve screamed at her to run, to get away, to get herself anywhere but here. She remembered striding through dark, dripping kobold caves, years ago, and hoping to all that might be holy that she did not look half as terrified as she felt. Sword in hand, Deekin at her left side, and flinching violently at every shifting shadow. _Of course, that time, all you found was a big fat white dragon who actually kept a journal dedicated to his own greatness. _

She risked another glance past Valen, saw more slender bones, jutting upwards and curving overhead. Again, she wondered why they had managed to come this far, why nothing was circling them. _Unless it is, _she thought sourly. _Maybe they've just _let_ you come this far. _

Blindly, she reached out, caught Valen's arm. Tugged him closer, and murmured, "I feel like bait."

He kissed her forehead. "I know."

Up ahead, she heard the smooth, measured sound of Imloth sliding an arrow from his quiver. Without looking back, the drow raised one hand. Jaiyan swallowed and trailed after him. She knew the plan, knew that they would be staying close together, moving slowly, exploring the cavern. _Hopefully finding something a little more defensible than open rock,_ she thought. She was under strict orders to remain with Valen and Deekin, while the drow would keep themselves away from the light or the kobold's spells.

Another pale bone spar arched up. She reached out, touched its cool, flat surface. Peering close, she saw odd markings, carved deep and travelling in strange spirals across it. She touched Deekin's shoulder, gestured for him to look. "Deeks, can you read these?"

He shook his head. "Nope. Not really. Look like marks on walls, but bit different." He traced the runes slowly with one hand. "Deekin thinks they look a bit like dragon writing."

She groaned. "Please tell me you're just guessing."

"Mostly."

"Don't you remember what happened the _last_ time you saw draconic writing in the Underdark?"

Deekin blinked slowly. "Yep. Boss got us out of that one, though."

"Only just."

"Look like wards," the kobold added, still whispering. "Trapping wards."

_So how is it these things are out and about and eating drow? _Her gaze wandered past Deekin, to where Andaryn stood poised, waiting while Imloth crept on ahead to where a high stone ridge swept across the cavern. _They did something_, she realised. _Saerith did, or one of the others, either deliberately or not. Something that broke through the wards and let them get free. _

She drew in a slow breath, and wished almost immediately that she had not. The air was thick and dank and tasted of something rotten. A hand closed on her shoulder, and she nearly screamed.

"You need to move," Dakesh murmured into her ear. "Quickly, and quietly."

She jerked away from him, and her intended retort died on her lips when Valen pushed roughly past her. His flail swung out, and she heard it impact. She swung round, saw him still moving, falling into step with Dakesh. Devil's Bane whipped out again, and the spines caught and pulled and she thought she saw something fall and crumple against the ground.

"Deekin," Imloth called. "Fire spells. Now."

Turning away from the drow, the bard rattled off a swift incantation. Fire rippled out from his clenched hands, and Jaiyan heard a high-pitched shriek. Bathed in the sudden flare from the spell, the bones above seemed stark and white and severe. With her shoulders pressed against cold stone, she twisted her head, saw Valen as he spun his flail. Beside him, Dakesh swung in low, raking his sword up and out. Another spell sizzled past her, blindingly bright, sinking into half-unseen skin and searing.

On her other side, Imloth cried out, jarringly.

She whirled round, saw him stagger. His bow was on the ground, his sword half out of its sheath. Something slammed into his shoulder, and he stumbled again. Not far away, Andaryn pirouetted elegantly and dragged his sword free, dripping.

Without thinking, Jaiyan hurtled past Deekin. She ignored Andaryn's snarled command to fall back. Reaching out, she grabbed Imloth's arm, hauled him up. Dived in front of him when she felt the air move, gripping her sword with both hands. Something heavy ploughed into the blade, and she held on, wincing when the muscles along her shoulders twinged. She lashed out with one foot, landed a solid kick. Wrenched her sword free and swore when thick, hot blood spattered her face and hands. She heard the gratifying thud of the creature falling, and could not quite suppress a grin.

Wordlessly, Andaryn slid past her. His sword carved into flesh, ripped clear, and then he was gone again, moving like smoke.

Claws dug against her shoulder. She leaped away, felt her leathers tear. She turned too quickly, spoiling her balance. Imloth's sword flashed past her face. Throwing herself back, she saw him drop to his knees before uncoiling upwards and burying his blade almost to the hilt. She heard Dakesh swearing, turned in time to see him lurching back, blood streaming too freely from his left shoulder. A tangle of white energy leapt from Deekin's hands, burrowed deep into half-unseen flesh. The mercenary recovered his stance and pushed forward, sword flickering in agile hands.

"Jaiyan!" Valen grabbed her shoulder, pulled her behind him. "Stay there."

"But Imloth…"

"Is fine. _Stay there_," he snapped. "There's too many of these things. Stay behind me."

She gritted her teeth, made herself stay silent. With her sword clenched in one hand, and her back against the stone, she felt useless. On both sides, she could hear the sounds of battle and the sparking, rushing noise of spells. She tipped her head back, stared up at the pale arch of bone overhead, and the stone beyond. In the faint light from the pendant around her neck, everything seemed dim and grey and washed-out.

Above her, the uneven stone seemed suddenly to ripple. She squinted, saw bits of gravel drop and roll. Bracing herself, she stepped away from the rock and thrust up. Her sword sank through flesh and snagged against bone. She tried to heave the blade free, but the creature above her clung to the rock face. Talons raked past her face. When her second attempt to yank her sword away failed, she swore. Pushing up with both feet, she lashed out blindly, grimaced when her fist met cold, scaled flesh. _Could be worse_, she thought. _You could've punched the rock face, and that would have _really_ hurt. _

The creature hissed, and she heard the scrabbling sound of claws against stone. She landed another blow with her elbow, then grasped her sword hilt and tore it clear. The creature thumped onto the ground, and she rammed the blade into it again, held on as it shuddered and twisted.

"Jaiyan." Valen's hands curled around her shoulders. "Are you alright?"

He was breathing hard, she noted, and his armour was splashed crimson. She nodded and summoned a ragged grin. "My sword got stuck, so I punched it."

His eyebrows rose. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Boss?" Deekin brushed against her arm. "Boss alright?"

She nodded again. "You?"

"Yep."

Around her, the darkness was silent, unmoving. A quick glance to one side showed her the two drow, both of them coiled and waiting. "What now?"

"We move in further," Andaryn answered.

She jerked her chin at the high spars of bone. "What about those?"

"What _about_ them?"

"I want to know what they are." She shrugged. "Might help us."

"No. It won't." Andaryn flicked blood off his sword. "All that will help us is scouring this place clean and somehow getting back to Lith My'athar."

"You're afraid," she snapped before she could think better of it.

His whole frame went rigid. "And you're not?" He shook his head slowly. "Come on. We have little time."

***

Valen glared at the unrelenting gloom and, perhaps for the first time, wished for sunlight. He knew the Underdark, knew its paths and caverns and how to survive them. The rules were different from Sigil's, but just as deadly, and he had learned them quickly. But down here, so deep that the stone seemed too heavy overhead, he found himself craving open air and clean light. Perhaps those months on the surface had changed him, or perhaps the invasive, clinging darkness was unsettling him. Either way, he wanted to be away from here. Beside him, Jaiyan walked quietly, sword held low and gaze fixed ahead. He would kill every creature in this cavern if it meant keeping her safe, but the stone ramparts on both sides stayed suspiciously bare of movement. Overhead, he saw nothing but empty air, and somewhere in front of them, more pale white bones arced up, curling around in a serpentine pattern before disappearing behind another outcrop.

"Do you hear that?" Dakesh murmured from behind him.

Valen froze. Under the measured tempo of his own breathing, he picked up the slight, cautious noise of something scraping against stone. "I can't see them," he whispered back. "Following?"

"Yes," Dakesh said. "Or waiting."

Valen followed the mercenary's gaze, saw how the high stone outcrops narrowed before dropping flat. "They'll slaughter us."

Dakesh grabbed his elbow, slowed him. Leaned in to murmur, "Pull the drow back. We go in first."

He nodded slowly. That made sense; the drow had bows, and he and the mercenary were big enough to almost block the gap where the ramparts lowered. Still, it was far from perfect; they could not hope to hold that position for long, and he was loathe to leave the rear guard almost entirely to Jaiyan and Deekin.

He slipped past Jaiyan, caught Imloth's shoulder. His attempt at drow signing was sloppy, he knew, but Imloth nodded without comment. He waited while the drow flitted past him, silently settled themselves against the outcropping. With Dakesh beside him, he edged forward until his shoulder was against the slope of the rock. He glanced ahead, and thought he saw them, clustered and waiting.

_Like seeing spirits,_ he thought. Half there and half not, like the strange, fluttering things he had sometimes seen called to battlefields in the Abyss. _Except these things are under no one's control, and are not summoned. _

He gripped Devil's Bane tighter, exchanged a quick look with Dakesh, and launched himself past the end of the outcrop. The flail scythed out, connected hard and mercilessly. He spun, lifting himself half off the ground, and slammed full-force into another creature. When it gave way and sagged, he finished it with a sharp blow that tore out what he supposed what its throat.

_This,_ he understood. The simple, instinctive step and motion and whirl of violence. Even years before Grimash't had given him Devil's Bane and unleashed him, he _knew_ how to do this, how to follow an attacker's movements, duck a swung blade, and retaliate harder and quicker.

Even now, even after Sigil and the Reaper and Cania, the blood roared and sang beneath his skin. Each snapping, powerful stroke seemed obvious, innate and deadly. Vaguely, he recalled Grimash't laughing about how the skinny little tiefling he had picked up had filled out nicely, and carried muscle in all the right places. He spun again, and the flail head smacked into flesh. He could smell shed blood, and the scent was all wrong. Thick and dark, like something that should be already dead. Beside him, he was aware of Dakesh, dancing past him, cutting in under the sweep of his flail. An arrow sailed past his head, and somewhere behind, he heard Deekin chanting.

Jaiyan was back there, he remembered. Almost stumbling, he brought the flail up swiftly. _No,_ he thought. _She'll be fine. Concentrate._

More arrows rained past him. Dakesh staggered, and Valen heard him swear viciously. He swung in front of the mercenary, brought the flail haft up and tensed. The locked muscles of his arm and shoulder absorbed the punishing impact as something slammed into him. Claws grated against his armour. He drove an elbow forward, felt the creature shudder and pull back. Devil's Bane followed, sweeping and connecting.

Dakesh grinned, nodded, and turned so that his shoulder was lined up against Valen's, blocking the gap again.

_Fighting side by side and in step with each other. _To his right, Valen saw one creature hurtle over the rampart, already passing him. He barked out a warning to Imloth, and an arrow whipped out, sank through its skull. The mercenary was still beside him, covering his weaponless left side, and Valen grinned. The tactic had been one he had been forced to learn upon arrival at Lith My'athar; Grimash't had cared little for numbers and casualties on the plains of the Blood Wars. Sometimes, unconsciously perhaps, he had been half-aware of the slaves alongside him. But then Grimash't had called him aside, and told him how well he killed, and how he _would_ stay alive, gods damn it all, for as long as possible, because he was valuable, and his master's treasure.

Valen snarled and snapped Devil's Bane forward, hard enough that the spines tore clear and bit into the stone beneath.

Someone grabbed his elbow tightly. He shook himself free and spun again, searching the darkness for the next attacker, the next onslaught. He heard someone say his name, low and urgent.

"Valen." Imloth this time, or again; he was not sure. "Valen."

"_What?_"

"They've fallen back." The drow was breathing hard, obsidian skin sheened with sweat. "Regrouping."

Valen blinked slowly. "Jaiyan?"

"I'm here." She slid past Imloth, caught his hand. "Valen, love, are you alright?"

"Yes. You're not hurt?"

She shook her head, raised his gloved hand to her lips. "No. Every time I tried to make myself useful and hit something, Imloth shot it."

"Good."

She did not let go of his hand. "What do they look like? Properly, I mean. I can see…I don't know. Not much. And my head hurts if I look too closely."

He glanced down, to the bleeding, unmoving heap of flesh and skin on the ground. "Like…lizards," he said, eventually. He narrowed his eyes; staring too long made his eyes ache. "In a way. Scales." He tipped one over with his foot. "Ridges. Long necks."

"Wings?"

"No wings."

Jaiyan grinned raggedly. "How very reassuring. How big are they?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"Not really. Just tell me something comforting."

"They're tiny," Valen said, entirely dead-pan. "Smaller than your kobold and just as unthreatening."

"Bad liar, tiefling."

She was still holding onto him, he realised, small fingers wrapped around his wrist. The light from the stone turned the angles of her face harsh and shadowed and severe. He looked down into her hooded blue eyes and decided that he much preferred to see her by sunlight. _But you fell for her down here,_ he thought. _Didn't see her in sunlight until Cania, and that was terrible. _

"Come on." Imloth stepped past him. "No use standing around."

Reluctantly, Valen moved away, felt the gentle brush of Jaiyan's fingers against his arm, then his face. He waited, poised and listening to the darkness while Deekin bustled up to Dakesh with healing potions, checking the wide slice on the mercenary's shoulder. Andaryn growled something about surfacers and bleeding, but accepted the potion that Imloth flung at him. He was holding himself gingerly, Valen noticed, all his weight slung to his right side. A closer look showed him a long, welling gash down the outside of the drow's left thigh.

Something rustled in the shadows. Valen snarled, took an instinctive step forward. Imloth caught his arm, halted him. Signed that _no, he shouldn't. _

"Imloth…"

The drow's hand flickered again, and Valen understood _too many ahead. _Before he could demand some alternative, Imloth signed to him to _wait, listen. Need to see more. Vantage. _

He wanted to snap that it was a bad idea, that all they had to do was push on, push on and kill until everything was dead.

Imloth gripped his arm again. Motioned with his other hand that _we're bleeding. Hurt. Can't afford to be cornered. _

Valen exhaled slowly, nodded. Even if he and Imloth and Dakesh threw themselves at anything that came howling out of the blackness, there was no telling who might be left standing afterward. They needed a better look at this cavern, perhaps even somewhere to hole up with their backs covered. He could hear the ticking sound of claws against the ground, and leathery skin rubbing against stone. _Not coming close,_ he thought fiercely. _Staying back. Circling. Watching us. _

With Dakesh just behind him, he led the others down and past the outcropping, to where the blackness pressed in on both sides. He looked up, tried to see the far side of the cavern, and failed. _How big is this place? _

Imloth glided ahead of him, one arm curled behind his back. His fingers danced, almost too fast to follow, but Valen understood _further up. Defend there. Better look. _

He followed the drow's narrowed gaze, saw how the uneven, rough rock crested up. Square-cut stone slabs protruded further up, their dark surfaces lined with runes. Even at this distance, Valen could see odd shapes and hard lines, and the skin between his shoulders tightened. _Who would've taken the time to cut balustrades down here? And why? _

Still, apprehension aside, the solid blocks of stone would offer some measure of protection, and a chance for decent footing.

Imloth darted up first, climbing enviably swiftly. He swung himself up and over the first balustrade with one hand, signed back that all was clear. Dakesh followed, with Deekin hopping up behind him, tiny claws digging against the stone.

Valen glanced back at the darkness. Something fluttered, all long legs and spiked limbs, slithering behind the jutting shape of an outcrop. He growled, gripped Devil's Bane tighter. He felt Jaiyan's fingers trace against the back of his hand, and he wanted to turn around, reassure her. Instead, he made himself stay still, listened as she scrambled up the slope, Andaryn's light, quieter footfalls trailing her.

The shadows shifted, and he had time to heft his flail and brace before the creature slammed full-force into him. He held on, wondering why the _hells_ he had not seen it sooner. The flail dipped and spun, and split the thing's skull apart. He registered the wet, heavy thump as it fell, and then he was moving again, whirling to meet the next two. Claws clanged against his breastplate. He jerked away, and Devil's Bane snapped up. Somewhere behind, he was aware of bowstrings cranking tight. Two arrows flashed past his head, sank almost fletching-deep in scaled skin. More followed, flying thick and swift out of the darkness.

On the crimson plains of the Blood Wars, when the air had been full of flame and arrows and screams, he had never trusted archers behind him. He had seen too many battle slaves fall, usually shot between the shoulders, or else pinned at the neck. Grudges or rivalries, perhaps, or clumsy mistakes, or sheer bad timing. He suspected the former, and had once felt his legs give way under him when an arrow slammed into the back of his thigh.

Grimash't had dragged him clear, he remembered. Dragged him clear, had him healed, and then flogged him for making careless mistakes.

Slowly, cautiously, Valen let himself move backwards, until his shoulders were almost against the slope. An arrow snicked over his head, disappeared into one creature's shoulder. The thing snarled, showing curved teeth, and kept moving.

Valen sidestepped its lunge and drove Devil's Bane against its head. He did not wait to see it drop, turned instead, and spun the flail up. Another volley of arrows took out the next three. Given half a heartbeat's time to gather himself, he swallowed down a deep breath. He wanted to run at them, to hammer Devil's Bane into them again and again until they were dead.

_No. You'll get cut off. There's too many of them. _

He growled and flung himself forward. A quick, vicious stroke tore out his next attacker's throat. He heard more of them, circling behind him. He turned, and grinned raggedly when he saw two of them topple, bristling with arrows.

"Valen!" Imloth's voice, and sounding frayed. "Get up here. Valen!"

He let his momentum carry him, let himself almost fall into the creature to his left. It hissed, buckling under his weight. Teeth snapped, close to his neck. He slammed one knee against its ribs, and the flail followed, taking off most of its head. He was aware of Imloth, calling for him again, calling for him to move back, _right now_, because he was going too far, _and couldn't he see that, damn it? _

He stopped. Thick dark blood dripped from Devil's Bane. He could see more of them, seething together, watching him through fierce dark eyes. Jostling each other, digging claws against the stone. Two arrows rattled down, another three following. _No,_ he thought. _Need to go back. Too many. Need to move. _He forced back the ferocious, bone-deep urge to keep going, keep killing. He loosened his grip on the flail, closed his eyes. Heard the familiar whine and thump of arrows finding targets. His head was spinning, and he felt _free_.

"Valen!"

He opened his eyes, saw teeth and claws and rippling skin. Without thinking, he twisted his wrist sharply, felt the pull as the flail bit into solid muscle. He wrenched clear, and turned again. Reached up, grabbed a hold on the slope. Pulled himself up, one-handed and carefully. Beneath his fingers, the stone was rough and chill and old. More arrows sheeted past him.

He grasped the edge of the balustrade, hauled himself over.

"You're alright?" Already at his side, Jaiyan pushed back a handful of sweat-damp red hair. "Valen?"

"I'm fine."

She touched the deep scrape across his breastplate. "Close."

"They're falling back." Imloth turned, propped his bow across his shoulder. "There's still a lot of them out there, though."

Valen pushed up from his knees, winced when the tendons down his calves pulled. "Numbers?"

"As many as we've already killed," Andaryn said. "And more, I'd wager."

He looked down, saw the runes carved into the stone. Spreading all along the balustrade, and up, to the one above them. "And these?"

Deekin shrugged. "Might be for warning. Might be for protection. Deekin not hold out hope, though."

"If they rush us, there's not much room," Valen said.

"No," Imloth answered. "But we've got the advantage of bows and height."

"That can't last."

"I agree. Keep moving up?"

Above, the edges of the stone slabs were stark and sharp. "Not yet."

He looked back down, to where he could see them, or the edges of them, clustering together, jaws snapping. Scaled skin hugging the sharp lines of defined muscle and hard bone. What had the Valsharess planned for them, he wondered, and why had she gone to such lengths to obtain them?

"Valen?" Jaiyan's hand slipped through his.

He could smell fresh sweat on her, and the light stone jolted with every deep, dragging breath she took. _She's blind down here,_ he thought, and it stung. _She can't see these things, and you barely can, most of the time. _

_Should've left her behind. _

He pulled her tighter against his side, let his tail wrap around her leg. "I'm here."

"Look down there." She tugged insistently at his hand. "Gods above, Valen. Look down."

He obeyed, looked past the stone ramparts, to where the long spars of bone rose, all tall, curving angles, pale and elegant. Snaking between outcrops and disappearing behind a high cliff wall, and looking down from this height, he saw the pattern they made. "It's...it's a dragon."

"It _was_ a dragon." She laughed, nervously. "Biggest dragon I ever saw. It's _huge_."

And it was, all white lines and splaying shapes. He tipped his head to one side, and saw how the thick fused backbone split the cavern in two. How others rose up on both sides, wide and smooth and strangely bright in the darkness. Why had it died down here, he thought, and what had killed it, and left its bones all picked clean and gleaming and circled with runes?

Beside him, Andaryn was staring, his red eyes narrow and his teeth gritted.

"Did you know?"

"No," the drow said. "I didn't…no. I didn't know. How could I?"

Valen opened his mouth to snarl at the drow, but the air blew cold and brittle against his face, and he heard them, hissing. Nudging each other forward, curling claws against the stone. Gauging the distance, he knew, and testing their enemies. "Imloth," he muttered. "If they rush us…"

Imloth nocked an arrow, drew the fletching back to his cheekbone. "I know."

The drow would pick more than a few off, Valen was certain. And with Deekin throwing spells in tandem with the arrows, he supposed they might be able to hold them back. But for _how long?_ The thought pressed, worrying and gnawing. If even _one_ of those things cleared the edge of the balustrade, they would be facing chaos. A cramped space, and darkness, and a slope beneath…for a terrible, needling moment, Valen almost wished he were alone.

_Or maybe just alone with Imloth. The drow to keep them back, and himself to cut down anything that crossed the stone slab. _

"Jaiyan?"

"Yes?"

"When they get across…"

"I know," she said, softly. She smiled up at him, gently, and touched his face. "I'll be behind you. There's no room up here, so how's about we kick them back down once they're dead? Make them work harder for us. I think we owe it to them."

Despite himself, despite the clinging, rotten darkness, he smiled. "I'll do the heavy hitting."

"And I'll claim all the glory afterwards."

Imloth's bowstring released. As quickly, the drow aimed and fired a second. On his other side, Andaryn nocked and drew. Below, another creature tumbled, skewered through the throat, falling heavily against the stone. Relentlessly, others charged over it, hurtling until they reached the foot of the slope.

_They're stopping,_ Valen thought. _Why?_

"Clever bastards," Dakesh muttered sourly. "They're baiting us."

_Arrows don't last forever_. Valen gripped the edge of the balustrade, swore when he saw most of them slinking back, sidling out of range and circling. Weaving in and out of the shadows, quickly enough that he could barely tell where their dark, scaled skin ended and the stone began. "Dakesh, watch them."

"Naturally. I'll let you know the _instant_ you're about to be attacked from behind. Or above. Whichever comes first."

Another monster screeched, toppling backwards, fletching sprouting from its chest. Valen growled wordlessly, clutched at the balustrade until the tips of his fingers turned numb. His tail was lashing, and he wanted to be doing something useful. _Not counting arrows as they run out. _

"Deeks," Jaiyan said. "Give them the biggest fireball you can."

Flame bloomed from the little kobold's knotted hands. Valen shied away, blinking rapidly. He heard the rush and roar as the fireball cannoned down. The stink of charred flesh assailed him, along with the spluttering sound of some other spell.

"Next time," he grated, "_Warn_ me."

Jaiyan snorted. "I did ask for the _biggest_ fireball he could manage."

The drow fired again, while the kobold called a tangle of lightning. Valen spun Devil's Bane once, twice, and twice again. Under his armour, his shoulders were rigid, and his heart was galloping. The thunderous report of another fireball smashing too close made him clench his teeth.

"Valen." Jaiyan closed her hand over his, and some part of his mind noted again how much smaller hers was. "You still there?"

His tail twitched irritably. Somewhere down the slope, he heard howling, and movement, harried and nearly frantic. "Yes," he said, thickly. He looked at her, almost desperate. "Yes. I just…"

"I know." She pried his hand off the edge, kissed his palm. "I'm here."

He wanted to say something, something about Sigil, maybe, or Azraleth, or Grimash't. But how could he, when Imloth was sighting and firing so fast it seemed his hands were a smooth, practiced blur, when Deekin was chanting another fireball into life? But until their enemies broke through, and the arrows ran dry, all he could do was stand, and try not to think too much, and wait.


	38. Chapter 38

_The usual disclaimer applies - Bioware owns nearly everything, save for a handful of original characters. A huge thank-you to everyone who's still following this story, and one to Tankgirly, who stayed up far too late reading it :D_

_**Chapter Thirty-Eight – Ways and Means**_

A dark-fletched arrow whipped past Jaiyan's face. She watched it arc down, and winced when it snapped uselessly against the curve of a boulder. Imloth snarled something in his own language, guttural and angry. On her other side, Valen was rigid, the sharp angles of his face half-shadowed and severe. His fingers were digging against the balustrade, and she wondered if he was likely to leap over it without thinking.

_You'd have to grab him by his tail,_ she thought, and swallowed an inappropriate smirk.

"I'm nearly out," Imloth hissed. "Andaryn?"

"Seven."

_Not enough,_ Jaiyan thought. Not nearly enough, and she could hear them clustering at the foot of the slope. _Would they climb and slither up_, she wondered, _or would they force a standoff and wait?_

White light jagged down the slope, and Deekin followed up with another fire spell. Below, something screamed, and Imloth called for another spell, lightning, anything to push them back again. She shot a quick look at Valen. _Stop worrying_, she told herself firmly. _He can take care of himself. You've seen him flatten a field full of devils. He'll be fine. He _is_ fine. _

But she had seen him manacled and helpless and bleeding, and knew very well that he was not fine, not yet.

Unbidden, old memory rose up, and she remembered confronting Drogan, hands shaking, and with the pain of a new scar still throbbing on one shoulder.

_"But it happened so _quickly_," she said, fiercely. "It was only four orcs, but gods above. I just…I turned around to get the one behind us, and by the time I turned back, Dorna was on the ground with her scalp split open and some big bastard of an orc about to do the same to the rest of her."_

_ Sitting with his fingers steepled under his chin, Drogan listened to her rant. Listened as she snarled about how Dorna should have stayed back, how she should have listened, how she should have _known_ not to go up against three orcs alone. _

_ "Dorna is fine," Drogan said. "She's tough, lass, you know that. I know that."_

_ "Yes, but…"_

_ "No," he cut across her, firmly. "Does yourself no good to chase the what-ifs of a fight. You should know that by now, lass. You can't be doing everything yourself."_

_ "I wasn't trying to do everything myself. I was _trying_ to keep her alive."_

_ "Do you trust her?" _

_ "What?" She uncurled her fingers from where they had been locked around her belt. "Of course I do."_

_ "Then you have to learn to _keep_ trusting her, lass. In battle or otherwise." Drogan's mouth hitched up in a dry smile. "It's not easy. How's your shoulder, lass?"_

_ "I'll live, I promise."_

_ "You'd better. I've got a stable full of muck for you to clean out by this evening."_

_ She rolled her eyes. "Your concern for my wellbeing shatters me once again, Master Drogan."_

The snap and rattle of bowstrings jostled her out of her thoughts. She blinked, realised that Imloth was moving, vaulting up to perch on the balustrade. His quiver was empty, and he shrugged it off.

"They're waiting," he said softly.

Valen's fierce blue glare was still leveled down the slope. "Go after them?"

"No. Not yet."

The tiefling's hand tightened on his flail. "_Why?_"

Imloth ignored him, and said, "Deekin, I want spells, as many as you've got left. When they close on us, you and Jaiyan will move further up. We'll hold them back as best we can, but I imagine you'll have to deal with a few who'll get past us."

Jaiyan nodded slowly. "Alright."

"Valen." Imloth reached out, caught his arm. "I need you to stay with me."

"I _will_."

"I need you holding the line. If _one_ of them breaks through…"

"I _know_," Valen growled.

Imloth opened his mouth to say something else, but Andaryn hissed out a warning. In response, Deekin chanted a fireball into life, sent it sputtering and crashing down the slope. Some white, whining sheet of energy followed suit, blindingly bright. While the drow turned away, and the tieflings shielded narrowed eyes, Deekin rattled off another incantation. Jaiyan recognized the familiar, brittle noise of an ice spell as it descended.

A huge, roaring column of flame speared down after, searing black lines against the rock and turning the air dry and hot.

Jaiyan nodded approvingly. "Didn't know you could do that, Deeks."

"Deekin read some new books in Waterdeep. And Deekin talked to Seer lady a bit as well."

"Very handy. Can you do it again?"

"Yep."

The report as the spell cracked down was deafening. Clenching her teeth, Jaiyan watched as the flames roiled against the stone. She could not see them, not properly, but gods above, she could smell the stink of charred skin. _Everything burns_, she thought viciously.

Kneeling, with his eyes still closed, Imloth called out, "How close are they?"

"Moving up," Deekin answered. "Deekin not have much magic left. Sorry."

Imloth uncoiled, braced himself beside Valen. "Alright. Get yourselves behind us."

Deekin hopped up the slope, small hands catching the brink of the next balustrade. "Boss! Come on."

She needed to follow him, she knew, but Valen was still standing there, death-grip on Devil's Bane and a murderous light in his eyes. "Hey, tiefling." She grabbed his wrist, held on until his head turned. "Stay alive, do you hear me?"

For a long moment, he stared wordlessly down at her. "I hear you."

"Boss," Deekin implored. "Need to move. Now."

Reluctantly, she loosened her grip on Valen's wrist. Yanking herself up and over the second balustrade, she heard Dakesh mutter something about stupidity, adventurers and ignominious deaths. She trailed Deekin further up, swearing when her heels slid against old, smooth stone. Another heave and she cleared another rock shelf. Turning, she saw Imloth motioning the others closer. Beside her, Deekin primed his crossbow. "Deeks, what does it look like to you?"

"Six…whatever-they-ares," Deekin said. "Coming up on Goat-man."

Jaiyan chewed her lower lip. "Maybe it would be better if I _didn't_ watch."

"Nope. Boss needs to be alert."

"Don't be so practical." Her eyes did not leave Valen, and she swallowed when he vaulted past Imloth, flail spinning. It connected, dug in, and ripped clear in a crimson blur. "I'm going to need you to guide me if we get cornered."

Deekin lifted his crossbow, took a moment to sight down on the chaos below. The string twanged free, and something heavy dropped, pinioned. "Yep."

She tapped her sword hilt impatiently, scowled, and flicked the tip of one finger against her belt buckle instead. Below, Valen carved his way through anything that dared slither itself onto the balustrade. He spun again, leaning his weight into the movement and letting himself crash full-force against his assailant.

On his left side, Imloth darted past the sweep of the flail. "Jaiyan! Two of them, heading up."

"Wonderful." She forced herself to look away from Valen, to not notice how he was chopping a path through the carnage below. "Deeks?"

The crossbow cranked taut and released. "One now, Boss."

"Nice shot." She gripped her sword hilt. Peered down the slope and narrowed her eyes. _It's there,_ she thought. She could hear it, _just_, scraping thick claws against the stone. Another heartbeat, and she thought she could see the air rippling, though it might have been some trick of the shadows.

Deekin fired again, and the bolt winged off into the darkness. "Boss! Right!"

She lunged, gritted her teeth when her sword bumped and slid against something solid. She pulled back, marshaled her footing, and thrust again. This time, the point caught and sank in, and she heard the creature cry out. She twisted her wrist and dragged the blade through and out. A crossbow bolt disappeared under her blade, and the creature sagged.

She poked at it with one foot. "Not so tough on their own, are they?"

"Jaiyan," Imloth called out, raggedly. "There's too many. Can't hold them."

"Deeks? How many coming our way?"

The little kobold shook his head. "Lots."

Jaiyan snarled. She could hear the rhythmic, clashing sound of combat beneath them. Swords driving against flesh, and gasped breaths, and gritted-out obscenities. With Deekin's spell repertoire nearly exhausted, and herself frustratingly blind, they could not hope to hold out long.

She grabbed Deekin's arm. "Come on. We need to move."

Dragging the kobold behind her, she hurtled over the back of the balustrade and up the crest of the slope. Overhead, the darkness hung thick and unrelenting. Part of her mind registered more runes, carved deep and twisting into the stone underfoot, trailing up and over the pinnacle.

"Boss! Behind us!"

She swung round in time to see Deekin call a quick spell. White light arrowed out, buried itself in something that hissed and screeched. She plunged her sword forward, knowing her footing was unbalanced, praying that it would not push her back. She heard it thump against the ground, and then she was running again, hauling Deekin along with her. Another pace, and another, and they crossed the ridge. Deekin screamed out a warning, and Jaiyan whirled, sword raised. Something heavy and breathing hard cannoned into her. Her legs gave way, and she gasped when her shoulders hit cold stone. Claws dug against her leathers, and she tried to kick up at it. Teeth clashed shut, too near her neck. Close to frantic, she angled her sword up and simply shoved. Hot blood gushed, and the creature shuddered.

She heaved it off her, grimacing when more blood slicked her hands. "Deeks? You're alright?"

"Yes, Boss. Where to now?"

Looking down, she saw that this side of the slope was steep, dotted with jutting rocks. Far below, elegant bone arches swept down between two high outcroppings before vanishing behind a sheer rock wall. "Keep running?"

"Running not be a proper plan, Boss."

"Yes, well. I'm all out of ideas." She shook her head. "I just…we're too exposed here. We'll get swamped."

Deekin nodded. "Need to move now then, Boss. Deekin hears more."

She nodded back at him, and pushed off at a flat-out run. Her impetus carried her past a clutch of boulders, then up and over a slight rise, before the slope finally bottomed out. Overhead, the white bone spars gleamed, seeming almost to flicker as she bolted through them. Deekin hurtled along beside her, wings flapping and pack jangling. She squinted upwards, noticed how the bones fanned out from a single, thick white line.

_It's a ribcage,_ she thought, appalled. _We're running through a dead dragon's ribcage. _

She was tempted to call something to Deekin about how this _might_ be the strangest thing they had ever done, but her breathing was coming short and shallow, and her calves were burning.

"Boss!" He tugged at her wrist. "Boss, slow down."

She complied, followed the motion of his free hand. Saw that the spread of pale bones stopped ahead, and something large and white loomed out of the darkness. "Anything following?"

"Nope. Don't think so. Hide maybe, Boss?"

"Inside its _skull?_"

"Boss gots a better idea?"

"No," she answered, sourly.

Sword held low, the skin between her shoulders almost unbearably tight, she matched pace with Deekin. Another three, tentative steps took her under the arch of bone that she just _knew_ must be the back of the creature's skull. Smooth, unblemished and softly glowing, and she wondered again what had killed it. Inside, the air smelled little different, and the even, clean whiteness was entirely inoffensive, but still, she could not quite shake the crawling feeling that this was somehow a violation.

_Grow up_, she thought firmly. _You've thought nothing in the past of rooting through barely-cold graves for coin. It's a long-dead monster. That's all. _

"Wow, Boss. Must've been _huge_ when it was alive."

Jaiyan gritted her teeth. "Yes. Huge."

She tipped her head on one side, tried to listen for the sounds of combat, running feet, anything. When she failed, she glared at the inside of the dragon's skull, tried to distract herself. "It's missing its lower jaw bone."

"Yes, Boss." Deekin blinked excited black eyes. "But maybe lower jaw just sank into the ground. Might've been down here a long, long time."

She shifted her feet, noticed that the ground had the same soft, slightly sticky feel that much of the rest of the cavern had. "Thanks, Deeks."

She was suddenly very aware of the blank, gaping holes that must have once housed burning eyes. Tearing her gaze away, she stared instead at the curving arch they had scrambled through. Beyond, she could barely make out the shape of boulders, and something narrow and serpentine and…_moving?_

"Boss!" Deekin's narrow shoulder cannoned into her side. Shoving her away, he braced himself in the gap and nocked his crossbow.

Landing hard, Jaiyan rolled onto her knees. She heard the twang and whine as the crossbow released. She pushed up to her feet, saw Deekin fumbling with another bolt. Under the pale arch, she could see the blurred, uncertain edges of the monster. _It's waiting,_ she thought. _Why's it waiting? Why not just charge in here and rip us apart..?_

……_Because Deekin's standing there,_ she realised, horrified. She had little time to wonder again what that might mean, though. Deekin fired again, and the monster shuddered, pinned through its shoulder. When it swayed, she darted past him, sank her blade to the hilt somewhere in the region of its chest.

"They're not touching you," she said, almost accusingly. "They've _never_ come near you. Why?"

He shrugged. "Don't really know, Boss." He clicked his teeth. "Maybe because of dragon blood?"

She was tempted to snap back at him that he was being ridiculous, but this was _Deekin_, and anyway, had she not seen him grow wings and breathe fire? "Sorry, Deeks."

"Not a problem, Boss." He grinned, all teeth. "Still need a plan, though. Can't be stuck down here fighting things for ever."

"I know." There _had_ to be some way out of this. Something was keeping these things alive down here, maybe dormant until Andaryn's doomed patrol had stumbled upon them. _A warded box,_ the drow had said. A warded box brought by Saerith's wizards, to trap these things in? "No," she muttered out loud. "They're too damn big."

"Boss?"

"The drow," she said. "The warded box they brought. What was it for?"

"Capture essence, maybe?" Deekin cranked another bolt into place. "Or maybe…Deekin reads book once, long time ago. About how sometimes things be controlled and kept captive by other things."

Jaiyan gripped her sword harder. Inside her gloves, her hands were slick with sweat. Through the terrible, dark gap, she could see movement, rippling and elegant. "Meaning what, Deeks?"

"Like how liches need phylactery, Boss."

She frowned, and thought she understood. "You mean…something that could be taken from here? And used to control these things?"

"Deekin thinks so. Deekin thinks Valsharess unlikely to use winning charm to control monsters."

She choked on a sudden laugh. "So what are we looking for?"

"Deekin not know. Sorry, Boss."

Something large and heavy crashed against the side of the skull. Jaiyan jerked back, heart hammering. She could hear claws against the dry bone, and something snarling. _They're circling_, she thought. _Watching. _She peered through the gap, saw the light flicker against scaled skin. "Deeks, can you pick them off?"

In answer, a bolt whipped past her shoulder, met its target. Another one followed, and she heard the solid thump as the creature fell, thrashing. _Still_, she thought, _he's going to run out of bolts, and sooner or later, they might get brave enough to stick an ugly snout or two in here. _She glanced behind, saw the jagged shape of the dragon's upper jaw, and wondered why nothing was trying to sneak its way through. Deekin fired again. She gripped her sword and felt irritatingly useless. _Dead dragon, _she thought. _Deeks has dragon blood. Were these things deliberately created, or did they just…happen? Did someone do something to this dragon's skeleton? _

"Boss! Look out!"

Instinctively, she hurled herself to one side. Studded with two bolts, a creature launched part way through the gap. She rolled up, sliced a deep gash with her sword. Spun, and thrust the blade into its throat. Another one followed, clawing past the corpses on the floor, keeping half of itself outside.

_They don't want to be in here,_ she realised. _Why not..?_

The creature sagged, a bolt sprouting from its head. Behind, more seethed and snapped, and in the jumping light from the pendant, Jaiyan realised that she could see them. Not entirely, and not perfectly, but _Gods above you can see their heads and their teeth and what in the Nine Hells created these things?_

"Deeks!"

He ratcheted the crossbow taut. "Yes, Boss?"

She swung in low, scythed through a creature's front legs. When it toppled, she plunged her sword into its skull. "I can see them."

"Oh." Deekin dodged a swipe, fired. "Good?"

Flanking him, she slammed her pommel against snapping jaws, noted with some satisfaction how the creature lurched back. Claws gouged across her shoulder, and she swore. She drove her sword into its throat, tried to ignore the hot, wet spread of blood through her leathers.

"Boss," Deekin said raggedly. "Blood. Be careful."

Before she could retort, her vision was filled with burning black eyes and teeth. The creature ploughed into her, taking her off her feet. Winded, she tried to bring her knees up, tried to tip it off her. Tail lashing against the ground, the thing pinned her. She writhed, frantically realised her sword hand was trapped flat beneath its bulk. Awkwardly, she wrenched her left arm up, lashed out blindly. Her fist smacked against scaled skin. When it reared up above her, she dragged her sword across its throat.

"Boss?" Deekin hovered above her, his voice full of dismay. "Boss be alright?"

She heaved the creature off her, grimaced. "I'll live."

Looking past him, she saw just how many creatures lay heaped across the gap. "Impressive, Deeks. Keep this up and we'll be building walls out of them."

"Well, they mostly be standing still to be shot." He shrugged. "When they not trying to be eating Boss."

She could still hear them, prowling beyond the gap, claws snicking and tapping against the ground. Her shoulder throbbed, and when she explored it gingerly, she found torn flesh and too much blood. Wearily accepting a healing potion, she muttered, "Remind me again why we're here."

"Um…to beat up monsters, Boss."

"Not good enough."

"To help drow?"

She drained the bottle, felt the sting in her shoulder dissipate. "Keep trying."

"Um…to show undying devotion to Goat-man because of Goat-man's loyalty to the Seer lady?"

"Hmm. Better." She rocked back on her heels, let her gaze wander up the curving bone. "Deeks? Light spell?"

He nodded, and a tiny white point floated up from his hand. Light flared across the smooth surface, and caught and danced within thick, clear veins that might have been glass, or crystal. Circled with deeply carved runes, and fanning out under the very apex of the skull.

"What in the _Nine Hells_ is _that?_"

Deekin shrugged. "Deekin not know. Deekin suspect it have something to do with monsters not wanting to come in here, though."

"Oh, very funny." She glared up at the glittering twists of glass above. "How could you pry that off without damaging it, though? If it's even what the Valsharess was after?"

"Maybe not all of it needed." He gestured up to where the sparkling lines converged, directly above them. "See that bit, Boss?"

She peered, saw that something else glowed beneath, something round. She drew down a deep, steadying breath. "Alright. So if we smash it, it _won't_, say, cause something awful to happen? Like conjuring this dragon back from the dead?"

"Boss. That be nearly impossible."

"You said _nearly_."

Deekin shrugged again. His tail flicked thoughtfully. "Not sure."

She heard something snarling, and claws grating against bone. A brief look out through the gap showed her a dozen or more of them, twisting and turning against each other. Quickly, and irrevocably, she decided. "Alright. We smash it and hope to all that's holy it does something good."

"Deekin not wish to be…negative. But how Boss going to reach it?"

She glowered at him, a little half-heartedly. "Shoot it out."

His first shot bit a sizeable chunk out of the glass veins; his second glanced off haphazardly. The third did no more damage than the first. He wasted a fourth bolt before she shook her head and said, "Try a spell instead."

But before he could open his mouth to sing, or chant, one of them barreled in through the gap. Claws sank into the soft, damp ground. Pausing halfway in, the creature flung its narrow, spined head back and roared. Jaiyan flung herself away, stayed down as Deekin fired. The bolt flew overhead and sank in to the fletching. Another one, plunging into the creature's shoulder, toppled it. Pushing up, Jaiyan met the second creature's enraged rush. The solid impact of it crashing against her drove her back. She swung, catching its full weight against her shoulder. It shoved harder, and her knees nearly buckled. Another bolt snapped past her, swept its front leg out. She scrabbled for her footing, balanced herself, and slammed her sword through its throat.

Jaiyan rolled her shoulder and groaned. "I need a bath. A long one. And then I'm never moving again."

Deekin ignored her, opened his hands and murmured some incantation. Lightning lanced up. He tried again, and she grinned when the next spell snapped thin, webbing lines along the glass. Another tangle of energy tore out six inches, sending fragments showering. Beneath, she could see what looked like a jewel, large and round and pulsing gently. The swirling, oddly milky surface reminded her of the phylactery in the dracolich's lair, and how it had thumped with trapped, unnatural life.

"Boss? Um…Deekin be all out of spells."

"What?" She shook her head. She could hear his bolts rattling in his quiver, and knew there could not be many left. "Right. Come here."

"Boss?"

Before he could object, she knelt and lifted him, overstuffed packs and wings and crossbow and all. After a brief, swaying moment, she arranged him on her shoulders. "You're heavier than I thought, Master Kobold. Can you reach it?"

He leaned up, and she groaned when his weight dug against her shoulderblade. "Sort of."

"Hit it with your crossbow. And quickly, or I'm going to drop you."

Muttering to himself, Deekin swung his crossbow up, haft first.

"Any luck?"

"Maybe if Boss would stop _pestering_ Deekin about it…"

She growled under her breath, braced herself when he pushed himself upward again. _This is ridiculous_, she thought absently. _And if one of those things suddenly gets bold and decides to attack, you might as well just die of embarrassment. _The crossbow smacked upwards again, and she heard glass shattering. Loose fragments fell past her face. Deekin swore, and said, "Can Boss get any higher?"

Gritting her teeth, Jaiyan shoved up, teetering precariously. Deekin's boots dug against her shoulders, and then she heard the glass burst, and his startled whimper as something wet and dank gushed free and coated them both. She staggered, and was about to warn him of an impending topple. The air around her turned cold, brutally cold, and stole the breath she tried to draw. "Oh, gods. Deeks…do you think that _was_ the right thing to do?"


	39. Chapter 39

_The usual disclaimer applies; Bioware owns most of this, save for a handful of characters for whom I must take full responsibility. Also, a huge thank-you to everyone who's sticking with this story. _

_**Chapter Thirty-Nine: Catalyst**_

Valen yanked his flail clear of a collapsing enemy and stiffened. Beside him, Imloth was half crouched and breathing hard, his sword dark with blood to the hilt. The tiefling tipped his head to one side and listened again. "Do you feel that?"

Imloth pushed carefully up to his feet. "It's gone…quiet. And cold."

"What's happened?" Eyes wide and wild, Andaryn shoved past the other drow. He glared over the balustrade, at the piles of the dead, and the blood that ran down the slope. "What happened?"

"I don't know." Valen drew in a slow, calming breath. He could see more of them, massing somewhere behind the corpses. Another deep breath, and another, and he slowly became aware that his forehead was sliced open, that he had sustained a long gash along the back of one calf, that his right arm felt wrenched half from its socket. "Imloth?"

"Yes?"

"Stay here." The skin between his shoulders was tight and prickling. "Wait for me."

"And if you don't come back?" Dakesh asked quietly.

"Then do whatever you think you need to." Valen loosened his grip on his flail, realised that his fingers were slick with sweat. He wanted to explain himself, tell them how he needed to find Jaiyan, find out whether the sudden, biting cold in the air had anything to do with her. Instead, he slipped past the others. He vaulted up onto the next balustrade, heard Imloth ordering Andaryn forward again, and the drow scout's waspish response. Around him, the air was still and brittle, and tasted like old, closely packed snow. Valen quickened his pace, pushed up over the crest, and tried not wonder about what he might find.

_You _know_ they did __something__, _he thought. He held Devil's Bane low as he ran, expecting a sudden, stampeding onslaught from the shadows. Nothing charged out to meet him, and nor could he hear the sounds of combat behind. He pushed on, and saw how the white bones above spread out, spearing into the darkness.

He had seen vast creatures he could not name on the plains of the Blood Wars, toppled and bleeding and finally sent to terrible deaths. Platoons of soldiers or snarling balor lords or towering monsters so tall it ached to look up at them, they had all fallen. But still, some terrible thought whispered at him, and made him wonder how this great dragon had been brought to its knees, and who had done it, and had they lived?

He could see the back of the dragon's skull, standing out white and proud against the darkness. And around it, more of them, snapping and seething against each other. Valen gripped his flail haft harder, gauged the distance, and launched himself into the thick of them.

A wide, serpentine tail lashed against his chest. He jerked back, dodged another sweep of curved claws. Behind, he could them pressing closer. Three pummeling blows with the flail gave him room to breathe, and a fourth sent another one staggering back, throat gaping. Something whined past his head, and he blinked when he saw a creature topple over, pinned through the chest and one eye with crossbow bolts.

"_Deekin?_" He should not have been surprised, he knew. He spun again, and the flail carved a dripping path through the next creature's head. Almost mechanically, he followed up, each movement learned and remembered as obviously as breathing. He whirled, and let the impetus carry him on, past his current, staggering target, and into the dead dragon's skull.

"Valen?" Ignoring the flail, and the blood that patched him from forehead to shoulder, Jaiyan attached herself to his chest and wrapped herself around him. "You're alright?"

"I'm fine." He closed his eyes, leaned his cheek against the top of her head. For a long, yearning moment, he let himself do nothing more than breathe in the scent of her, leather and weapon oil and sweat. "Dare I ask what you did?"

"Have you no faith?" With her face still pressed against his shoulder, she muttered, "We…smashed something we found in its skull."

"You did _what?_"

She shrugged, and added, "Look up there."

He obeyed, and saw the ragged edges of broken glass, and streaks of something wet and dark. "What does it mean?"

"Not sure," Deekin piped up. "Might be like phylactery."

"But they're still out there."

"Deekin reckons that's what the Valsharess was after," Jaiyan said, finally prying herself away from him. "There has to be some focus, something in here that lets you control them. Something the Valsharess wanted. Someone _made_ these things."

"You're sure?"

"No," she said, wryly. "But I don't think ghostly monsters spring up from the corpses of dead dragons normally."

He snorted. "Fair point. But why would anyone _want_ to do that?"

"Valen, love. You're from Sigil and you've spent far too much time around drow, and you're asking _that_ kind of question?"

***

_Deep beneath the stone, something breathed and lived. With its wings torn ragged at the edges and its eyes bright with hate, it slept in the deep caverns and crawled through high, dark ravines. It should have been soaring through the skies of the world above, searing air and earth with flame, and arcing through the rippling clouds, and tasting the empty skies. How had it come to this, to crawling through corridors of echoing stone, and tearing apart small, scurrying creatures for food? Tiny things, they were, and they carried tiny weapons with sharp points, and snarled in their strange, sibilant language, and brought wizards with them. Their obsidian skin and black armour and glossy white hair hid soft, tender flesh, and it ate them when it had to, when they forced it to. _

_ Some part of its mind remembered other years, other decades, when things had been different, before the caves, and the darkness, and the creeping, cold certainty that it might never see the sunlight again. _

"Mother Seer? Mother Seer, wake up."

She rolled over, and felt silk beneath her chin. "Nathyrra?"

"I'm here." Leather creaked, and shadows swept across her vision. "What did you dream?"

Slowly, she sat up. The sheets pooled at her waist, and she was aware of the soft, heavy weight of her hair down her bare shoulders. It seemed absent, too far away, while the threads of the dream still clung to her. "I dreamed of a dragon."

When Nathyrra frowned, she explained, described how she had seen the dragon retreating underground, slinking so deep and so far that it forgot the surface and whatever treasures it may have left behind there.

"_That_ is what they're facing?" Nathyrra's hands twisted together.

"No. Not really. Its death and what is left of it…its anger. That is what they are facing."

"I don't understand."

"No." The Seer blinked slowly. "Neither do I." She gazed down at her own hands, clean and slender and loosely linked. "Forgive me. Am I needed?"

"You asked me to wake you when the watch changed," Nathyrra said carefully. "Should I return later?"

"No." She needed to clear her thoughts, and focus, and remember that the city still lay waiting and uncertain. "Will you help me dress?"

Nathyrra smiled, nodded. "Of course."

As the younger drow turned, finding her way to the clothes chest, the Seer pushed the sheets away. She recalled how Nathyrra had stammered once, upon being asked up to her leader's chambers, how she had assumed a private audience meant some kind of punishment. How the hard, practiced mask of her face had flickered, _ever so slightly_, when she realised that dinner with chilled wine was genuinely all that was offered. She accepted the soft, dark robes Nathyrra held out, enjoying the play of the fabric against her skin. "How fared your watch?"

"Uneventful," Nathyrra answered. "Olortyr seems calm. She said her scouts have no intention of doing anything other than follow your orders."

"Do you believe her?"

"No. I believe she _is_ calmer, though. I just don't believe it will last unless we have some word."

While Nathyrra quickly knotted the left-hand ties, the Seer finished the right side, and silently agreed. There were times when no word was worse than a clear failure. Drow counted victory in enemies slain, and blood shed, and the absence of either would breed impatience at best, treachery at worst.

"Is there any way…" Nathyrra handed a brush across. "Can you contact them?"

"Jaiyan's kobold is the only one of them with a hint of innate arcane talent." The Seer drew the brush slowly through her hair. "Though…perhaps."

"Should we have sent a wizard with them?"

"No. They brought their own outsider with them from Sigil, and we sent Andaryn. This kind of journey, through that kind of darkness...trust is crucial. I would prefer that they return alive, and not at each other's throats."

"Will they?"

The Seer laid the brush down. Two names hung between them, and when Nathyrra said nothing more, only set to the task of briskly dividing and braiding the Seer's hair, she ached. She wanted to turn, gather Nathyrra into her arms, and reassure her that they were most likely fine, and on their way back to Lith My'athar even now.

"I will not lie to you," the Seer said. "I cannot. The truth is simple. I don't know."

Nathyrra twisted the last braid across the back of the Seer's head, slipped two pins into place. "With Imloth…did you expect it?"

She turned, and saw that Nathyrra's gaze was pinned on the far window, that her hands were wrapped around her belt. "No," she answered. "I did not."

"When did you know that you wanted him?"

"When Lith My'athar fell," she said, honestly. She remembered the stink of smoke, and burning flesh, and how beneath everything, every worry and fear, ran the searing, desperate hope that he was still alive, still on the walls. "He found me, afterwards, standing in the ruins."

Nathyrra's head jerked up. "He did?"

"He found me, and he put his arms around me, and then he made me eat." She smiled, a little sadly. She reached up, touched her hair where it lay in thick, plaited coils. "Thank you."

Nathyrra nodded. "You are most welcome, Mother Seer."

They walked to the city walls wordlessly, Nathyrra prowling alongside her with quick, silent steps. She had made this journey more times than she could recall, but the way the soldiers turned to each other and whispered was still too new; the way they murmured about the darkness, and the outsider, rather than the Valsharess, and a prophecy, and impending victory.

With Nathyrra at her shoulder, she discovered Olortyr at the gates, mid-tirade as she harangued a tired-looking scout.

"Olortyr," the Seer said, quietly. "He's exhausted."

Olortyr whirled around furiously. "Do you think the caverns care how tired he is, Seer?"

"He is not out in the caverns. He is here, in Lith My'athar, and he needs sleep and food." She looked past the drow female, and scrutinized the scout. He was young, with crimson eyes half-hidden beneath a disheveled mop of hair, and nervous fingers trembling around his bow. "Go," she said, gently. "There's hot food at the barracks, and you can sleep."

The young male ducked his head, muttered his thanks, and darted past her.

"Don't," the Seer said warningly, when Olortyr strode forward. "One scout asleep in bed will not cause disaster. Too many still on watch while too tired might."

Olortyr exhaled slowly. "Yes, Seer."

"He was sent outside the walls?"

"Yes, Seer. He and ten others. They report nothing important. Duergar tracks, heading west. Nothing more."

"Good." She scanned Olortyr's thin, pinched face, and said, "When did you last sleep, yourself?"

Olortyr shook her head. "I can't, Seer. I try, and…I can't, not properly."

"You were here when the Valsharess' troops attacked, yes?"

"Yes. I was."

"You slept then," the Seer said, more severely. "This threat is no worse, and no greater, and I cannot have my soldiers falling off the wall out of exhaustion."

Olortyr shook her head. "You believe that?"

_No. Not really. _"Anything can be vanquished."

She opened her mouth to tell Olortyr that she was relieved, that someone else could take over, and her vision went grey. Her knees gave way, and she reached out, grasped for what she guessed what Nathyrra's arm. She hit the ground hard, and her sudden, gasping breath came out choked. Someone spoke, demanded to know if she was alright. Someone else replied, probably Nathyrra, and snapped something about seeing things, and Eilistraee.

_Eilistraee_.

She tried to claw through the black walls that seemed to have slammed into place around her thoughts. She was unaware of her own name, of the air in her throat, of the hands that pulled roughly at her shoulders.

_Eilistraee and the full, heavy moon, washing silver over the landscape. _

"Hold her," Nathyrra snapped, and sounded very far away. Then again, fiercer, saying, "_Yes_, I've seen it before. Don't you _trust_ her? How _else_ do you think she is gifted with visions?"

Other words followed, vicious and venomous and blurred by terrible, blanketing distance. _Why, _part of her mind wondered, _why did it have to happen now? Why not in bed, asleep, away from prying eyes? Or at the temple, with dignity, and silence?  
_

_The full moon, round and bright above the dark line of the trees. She had danced beneath its streaming brightness, so long ago, when she was so much younger, and had fled blindly to the surface to pledge her devotion. _

Someone guided her backwards, until her shoulders touched the ground. Nathyrra snarled at someone again, and she heard running footsteps. Desperation followed, and she knew she had to let go, to let the vision overwhelm her, and trust Nathyrra.

_Imloth,_ she thought. _Need Imloth. _

But she had survived too many decades without him, and Eilistraee must know that.

_It crawled, huge and ungainly, wallowing through the darkness. It should have been elsewhere, and it knew it. It remembered in snatches of odd dreams, high mountain peaks and screaming wind, gleaming coins and treasured eggs. It knew the tiny things in the stone corridors feared it, and its teeth, and its flames. They called it a monster, and sent many of their own against it, and they died. It had tried to gather a hoard of soft coins and shimmering jewels, but the tiny creatures rarely carried worthy treasures. Sometimes it found silver pieces, or sharp and shiny arrowheads, or swords marked with elegant shapes. _

_It forgot whatever it had called itself up there, where the air did not stink of death, and it did not remember why. Other things came for it, and died inside its jaws, and apparently they were not the same as the others, because they had paler skin and tasted rather different, and wore different things, and carried strange weapons. _

"_Don't_ wake her," Nathyrra ordered.

She sounded frantic, entirely unlike herself, and part of the Seer's mind wondered why. Her mind was awash with moonlight, and her eyes saw only the darkness, and the dragon.

_Some years it was full of hunger, and no matter how far it went, how many passageways it squeezed its bulk through, it never found enough to eat. Once it tried to claw its way back up to something half-remembered, something to do with open air and light that did not come from the tiny torches its enemies sometimes brought with them, or the bright spells they flung. A creature – tiny, robed, and laughing – found it, and unlike the rest, was not afraid. Instead, the thing laughed at it, and left. And came back, with a group of others who seemed rather the same. It remembered pain, and how they had shot arrows at it, and its howling had sent them fleeing for a while. _

_But they had returned, and shot more arrows, some tipped with flame, and thrown spells that it thought it might once have recognized. _

The Seer screamed, and hands pressed her down. Nathyrra's voice floated into her thoughts again, reassuring and warning at the same time. She twisted again, and her hands struck against cold stone.

_The cavern lay dark and forgotten after the dragon died. Empty stone arches, still and cold as the fallen dragon. Then a man – no, a wizard, she realised – the same man who had found the dragon. _

"Halaster," she said aloud. "Halaster."

_He ordered runes carved into the bare stone, and spells cast, and wards called up. Terrible, old dark spells of domination, that would lace death into the stone and keep fallen spirits captive. _

"And when woken, call them forth," she said, in the same cold tone.

_Why would he do that? What price asked for spells that demanded vengeance? _

"I'm here," Nathyrra said, quietly, near her ear. "I'm here. You're safe."

_From the dank earth he called up those who had died and bound their screaming spirits to that place, to the bones of the dead dragon, still curled between the stones. Where had she seen that before? This terrible spell that trapped the waiting dead? _

_Mephistopheles had called up those who had died, and forced them into slavery to fall and die again. _

Had_ she seen it before, or was she thinking someone else's thoughts, remembering someone else's memories? _

_Watching, as the flesh was scraped clean off the dragon's arching bones, she was no longer sure. Another spell rang out, harsh and powerful enough that she heard the air buckle. And somewhere between shouted syllables and the way the emptiness rippled, something went wrong. _

_These things should have been slaves, she realised, called up and made to serve in fealty. But the fierce, monstrous things that rose up, echoes of those who had killed the dragon or else died upon its jaws, were not. They surged forward, and she smelled the same invasive, rotting stink that had she had smelled in the caverns near Lith My'athar, that had clung to her visions and to Andaryn. The wizard drove them back, and lost more men, and watched as they fell, screaming and taken by the dead dragon's vengeance. _

_The wizard fled, leaving more dead behind him, and she saw how they clung to the dragon's bones. _

_How many years had passed, she wondered, while they sat and waited? How many decades? How many stumbled across the wards and were slaughtered, and were joined with the spirits that waited, vengeful?_

"They'll be killed," she said aloud. She reached out blindly, felt her fingertips skim against leather. "Nathyrra?"

"I'm here."

"I need…" She tried to sit up, but her eyes were still black with the vision, and she could not quite feel the stone beneath her. "I need…"

"Mother Seer?" Nathyrra propped her up. "What is it?"

"The temple," she managed through gritted teeth. "Take me to the temple."

***

With one hand braced against the curve of bone, Valen glared out into the darkness. "What are they waiting for?"

Jaiyan shrugged. "Don't know. They just don't want to come in here."

"Before or after you broke it?"

"_Before_."

The two drow and the mercenary were still out there somewhere, and he wondered if they should chance running back, or wait and hope and the others might simply come to them. "We need to decide what to do."

"Imloth's tough," she said. "Did you tell him to stay there?"

"Yes, but…" He scowled. "We still don't know how many there are out there."

"As many as died in the dragon's mouth," Deekin said, quietly, sadly.

Valen's shoulders stiffened, and his tail lashed. He looked at the kobold, saw that he had one hand splayed against the wall of bone, and that his eyes were half-closed, drowsy.

"Deekin?" Jaiyan crouched down beside him, touched his elbow. "Deeks?"

Valen growled. The air around the kobold smelled coppery, and he did not like the odd, vacant expression on his face. The little bard had _dragon blood_ in those unprepossessing veins of his, and they were _inside _a vanquished dragon's skull. Valen shoved aside the sudden prickle of guilt at that thought, and stepped forward. "He's not with us," he murmured.

She shook her head, did not move. "Deeks? Deekin? Can you hear me? It's Boss. Come on, kobold."

The kobold's hand lifted again, tracing lazy arcs across the surface of the bone. "Dragon came down here all lost. Forgot everything. Where it was. Who it was. Wizard killed it, and tried to trap its spirit, and the spirits of everyone else it had killed."

Valen gripped Devil's Bane until his fingers ached. The kobold's voice was hollow, lilting, and not himself.

"Spell went wrong," Deekin said. "Turned them not into slaves. Turned them angry and wanting more death. Dragon called its own revenge."

"But the wards still worked?" Jaiyan narrowed her eyes. "Is that what you're saying?"

"Until they were crossed, or disturbed." Deekin blinked slowly. "It all happen long, long time ago. Hundreds of years."

Valen snarled. "Then how exactly did an old, mindless, probably mad dragon have the skill to still conjure that kind of magic?"

The kobold's head turned, and those bird-bright black eyes raked across him. A chill chased down his spine, and he reined back the urge to lash out, or bolt. _Wait_, he thought. _Only one person has _ever_ looked at you like that. But how could she...?  
_

"Because the dragon be very old and very angry, and though it not remember the words to turn wizard's spell back on him, it remember the magic, and it be full of anger."

_This is ridiculous_, Valen thought. _Can't be... _But the kobold's voice and words might have been his own, just, but the intonation was not, and the unyielding steel threading through his tone belonged entirely to the Seer. "How do we kill it?"

"Already dead," the kobold said. "Needs to be ended."

"How?" Jaiyan grabbed his chin, turned his head. "How?"

"Disrupt the wards, destroy the focus of the spell."

Valen glowered up at the dripping mess of broken crystal and white bone above. "Wasn't that already done?"

"No." Curiously blank, the kobold shook his head. "That be what Valsharess needed. Needed it pried off and kept, and carried back, and kept by wizards in warded boxes until new spells could be cast over it. Cleave the skull from the spine. Destroy its spirit. Let its rage go."

"So we have to bludgeon this thing apart while trying not to get killed, while not knowing where the others are?"

Jaiyan nudged him. "Lucky you can bludgeon rather hard, my tiefling." Before he could retort, she very gently touched Deekin's shoulder. "You in there this time, Deeks?"

A shudder ran through his small, wiry frame. His eyelids fluttered. "Boss?"

"I'm here." She pulled him into a quick hug. "How do you feel?"

"Not sure." He frowned. "Felt…not painful. Like…being very very carefully pushed to one side. But…Deekin's throat feels funny."

Jaiyan laughed. "Well, I'll be keeping my distance, then. The last time your throat felt funny, you started breathing fire."

"Boss," he said, disapprovingly. "Deekin just gots possessed…or something. Boss should be nice."

"I _am_ being nice." She grinned. "Now. I suppose we need a plan of some sort. So how do you think we should go about finishing off the languishing spirits of dead dragons?"

Valen groaned. "Could you possibly be a _little_ less cheerful?"

"But why, my love?" She leaned up on her toes and kissed his cheek. "We're still alive, aren't we? Reason enough to be cheerful, I think."

He looked down into her face, saw how Deekin's magelight sent odd shadows rippling across the slope of her cheekbones. She was still smirking up at him, and despite the way his skin was crawling with sweat beneath his armour, and the way the gash on the back of his leg stung, despite _everything_, he felt the tension empty out of him. He wanted to gather her up in his arms and kiss her until they both ran out of breath, but he supposed that would have to wait. Instead, he opted for cupping her face with one gloved hand, and murmured, "You know, I think you're right."


	40. Chapter 40

_The usual disclaimer applies; Bioware owns most things, save for a handful of characters who belong to me. This chapter is slightly short, but the end break seemed natural. _

_**Chapter Forty – Absolution**_

Jaiyan tested the weight of her sword again, flicked at the pommel, remembered just _how many _times Drogan had groused at her for the dreadful habit, and made herself stand still. Beside her, Valen was coiled, head tipped to one side while he listened. She gripped her hilt tighter and tried to shake off the urge to bolt, to launch herself out into the darkness. _No,_ she thought firmly. _You actually have a plan now. Wait. _Admittedly, it was a plan that needed to work while fending off however many trapped, broken spirits, locked now in flesh that was hard and cold and scaled.

"Deeks?"

"Yes, Boss?"

"Do you think this is the stupidest thing we've ever done?"

"No," he said eventually. "Not quite. Almost…but not quite."

She grinned, a little raggedly. She opened her mouth to retort, but Valen brushed her shoulder. Swallowing, she glanced up at him. "Ready?"

"They're falling back," he answered. "Stay behind me."

She nodded wordlessly. Fell into step just behind him when he prowled out through the gap. Deekin's magelight showed her the curving spars of the dragon's ribs, and the dark, seething mass of creatures watching them. She peered upwards, saw the huge joints of the spine, and how they were carved with deep, cruel shapes. The runes arrowed towards the skull, and Jaiyan supposed that must be the place Deekin – or the Seer - had spoken of.

_Cleave the skull from the spine_.

Valen squeezed her shoulder, and she nodded again. Deekin was behind her, his back pressed to hers, and she heard him murmuring. She licked at dry lips and wondered again how long they might have to hold them off, and where was Imloth, in any case, even if he was still breathing? She saw Valen's tail lash twice as he stared up, judging the distance. Then he was moving, launching himself upwards. The flail arced out, and the spiked heads smacked hard and loud against the bone above.

_It didn't break_, Jaiyan thought desperately. _Didn't break. They're going to _have_ us and it didn't break_.

Valen growled, heaved himself up again. Devil's Bane raked clean across the underside. A third, shuddering impact left gouged-out lines across the wards. From her left, one of the creatures charged. Claws out and jaws snapping, it tore past Valen and full into Deekin's first spell, screaming as flame licked across it. Jaiyan followed up, slammed her sword through its chest.

"Keep going," she said. "We're fine. Keep going."

"_Jaiyan_…"

"Keep going," she ordered fiercely. "We can't reach it. You need to keep going."

Valen scowled, but kept his mouth shut. Ferociously, he struck out at the unyielding, white bone above.

"Deekin!" Jaiyan dodged another monster's stampeding attack. "Keep them off him!"

White fire cracked out from the kobold's hands. She rolled under the next volley of lightning, finished off a creature that was circling behind Valen. Somewhere overhead, she heard something cracking, pulling apart. She spun, opened her mouth to ask what it meant, if he was nearly there, and three of them swarmed at her. She met the first, frantic and sloppy, and her sword clashed off its teeth. The second darted past her, and she heard its shriek as some brilliant, burning spell sent it sprawling. The third hissed and hurtled at Valen. Desperately, she raked her sword across her target's throat, turned in time to see Devil's Bane thumping solidly against the fourth creature's head. Valen yanked away, turned his attention back to the white spine, to where it seemed almost to float against the darkness above.

_Can't keep this up,_ she thought. _Not unless we want to clear out the whole damn cavern first_.

Still, she had no other choice, so she hefted her sword and braced to meet the next thundering attack. The creature's whole weight ploughed into her, and she staggered back three paces. Its jaws snapped shut near her neck. She dropped almost flat, heard it growl. Some spell rushed over her head, and its whole skull flared with bright light. Pushing up straight, she sliced its throat open, ignored it as it toppled.

"Boss!"

Her blade sank through skin, snagged against bone. She wrenched free, heard Deekin call for her again. "What?"

"Boss! Imloth!"

She dragged her head up, stared up the slope and saw Imloth, alive and breathing, and the other two behind him. They looked wrung through and exhausted and bleeding, but they were _here_. She grinned wearily, ducked a swipe from curved talons. "What kept you?"

"These things have friends," Imloth answered acidly.

Dakesh cannoned into the creature shoulder-first, forced it back. His sword swept in beneath hers. "What are you _doing?_"

"Chopping through its neck! What does it look like?"

The mercenary sidestepped another lunging attack, responded with a brutal, clinical thrust to the throat. As the thing collapsed, he scowled. "I can _see_ them. Properly. _Entirely_."

"Good." Jaiyan suppressed the sudden, inappropriate urge to laugh. "Now get down there and help Valen."

"What?"

"Go help Valen!"

The mercenary muttered something about cavalier orders, but, after sending another creature staggering, he complied. Imloth slid into his place, Andaryn flanking him. Half aware of them, as she squared off against her own opponent, Jaiyan noticed again how rarely they let the monsters come to them, how they would twist and deflect an attack almost before it _became_ a true attack.

Imloth dived in front of her, his sword flashing across hers. The point of his blade bit deep into her target's throat before tearing free. She was tempted to remark about arrogant drow, but the roar of a fireball slamming too close overhead swallowed her voice. Silence followed, broken eventually by the sound of Devil's Bane cracking hard against bone. Jaiyan turned in time to see Valen shoving up again, Dakesh at his side. The flail connected, and large chunks of bone fell. Another stroke, and another, and the air Jaiyan tried to gulp in turned icy and brittle. She glanced at Imloth, saw that his pale eyes were wide, his chest heaving beneath his leathers. She managed another step, and then she was flinging her sword up, blocking the creature's shrieking rush. Somewhere close by, she heard Andaryn cry out. Claws sliced across her arm. She wrenched back furiously. Gasped out her thanks when Imloth flitted in front of her. Given enough space to gather herself, she settled her stance, ignored the sting in her arm, and hoped that they could give Valen and Dakesh the time they might need.

***

The Seer gripped at the stone and tried to will her thoughts calm and flat. She could feel the kobold's anxiety, his fear, every jerking breath he took as he conjured flame and lightning. Before her eyes, the stone likeness of Eilistraee swam. Somewhere behind, she heard footsteps, each one a loud cry that speared into her head.

"Gods above, Nathyrra. This is not helping."

Other voices joined in, low and urgent. "She's been like that for too long."

"We need to be sending more scouting parties out. We've had no word."

"Were _none_ of you given leave to see such things ever before?" Forceful and accusing, Nathyrra's voice rang out in sharp riposte. "Did _none_ of you see this? We faced the Valsharess for so long. Were _none_ of you aware of the toll?"

"No," someone answered viciously. "Who was, save for her pet tiefling and that male of hers?"

The Seer's fingers curled, close to cramping. Somewhere far away, the kobold's hands coiled and snapped as he summoned another tangle of energy. The inside of her mouth tasted sandy, and her heart jumped when the kobold cried out for Imloth to move, and quickly. Sweat tracked thin trails past her eyes, and she wanted to swipe it away. But she could not, dare not, not while such a tremulous connection abided.

Not while the kobold's spells might run dry.

Not while the dead dragon remained intact, and the spirits of its vengeance still raged.

"Stand down." Metal sheared free of leather, followed by footsteps, faster. "Stand down, or I will have you dragged from this temple."

"On whose authority?"

"On _mine_, Olortyr. On mine as your Matron Mother."

The Seer wanted to scream at them to stop, stop talking and let her think. Let her follow the kobold's motions, let her listen to the sped beat of his heart, let her hear the desperation in his voice when he shouted to his Boss that there were two behind her. Somewhere inside her head – or his, she was no longer quite sure – lay the dragon, dead and hating.

"I won't ask again," Nathyrra said, very quietly.

In another place, a vast, bone-shaking ice spell ripped free. The kobold was on his knees, driven down by the force of the blast, and numb from it. She could feel his shock, half elated, half terrified. The ranks of the pitiless dead were driven back, she knew, but it would not last. _Not as long as there were living, breathing enemies in that cavern with them. _

"You're alone. Step down now, and you'll be spared. And I may find you of use."

"And I find you quite unable to lie convincingly," Nathyrra spat.

Steel, carving through empty air. Footsteps, running, and someone breathing hard.

The Seer whirled away from the statue. With her eyes still firmly closed, she raised both hands. Some part of her mind registered the sudden frisson of pain as claws raked across the kobold's shoulders. The whine of unleashed magic rose, harsh enough that her head ached. The spell erupted from her fingers, sharp and painful and blinding. She heard them screaming, and the sickening sound of some of them falling. Nathyrra shouted, ordering shackles to be brought, and quickly. She tried to open her mouth, but her tongue was heavy, and would not move properly.

Far away, the kobold called a roaring column of flame. She swayed, aware suddenly of the sweat that coated her lips. Some jagged, vital thought pressed through. She needed to discover who was alive, and whether Nathyrra was hurt, and just who were those shackles for?

"I've got you." Nathyrra caught her arms, propped her up. "I've got you."

"Forgive," the Seer managed, thickly. "I didn't…"

"They'll live, most of them." Before she could object further, Nathyrra added, "I have guards on the way with irons. You won't be troubled."

She wanted to protest, for how could Nathyrra not understand? When had they ever behaved thus in Lith My'athar? When had decisions here ever been enforced with manacles and punishment?

"Mother Seer." Firmly, Nathyrra led her back to the statue. Guided her hands to the edge of the stone again. "It's alright."

She tried to form words again, and failed. Her head was full of the roaring noise of magic. She could feel each hitching breath as the kobold tried to ignore the pain in his back, the ache in his muscles. Along with him, she heard the thud as Valen's flail crashed against the dead dragon's spine. "Nathyrra?"

A warm, slender hand wrapped around hers. "I'm here, Mother Seer."

"Don't leave me."

***

The lightning spell sizzled from Deekin's fingertips, bright enough that it stung his eyes. Still, it bowled over two of the creatures, leaving Imloth free to swing back round and help Boss again. She was soaked in sweat, and while she was keeping up, Deekin could see how tired she was, how blood leaked down one of her arms. Like a darting, lethal shadow, the other drow danced on her other side. Just behind him, he heard Goat-man snarl. The flail ground through the bone again, and Deekin ached. Something in his blood and his head _hurt_, every time the flail connected with the dead dragon. And he was not sure if it was to do with the fact that the dragon was a dragon, or because Imloth's Seer lady was still sitting in the back of his mind.

He could feel her, slightly, not painfully. She was gentle, and had not tried to speak through him again, but even so, it was strange. And he could feel that she was exhausted, and keeping his spells going despite it.

Around him, the air stank of shed blood and dying flesh. He called up another fire spell, sent it plummeting past the other drow's white head. The reek of charred skin rushed into his mouth, and he swallowed. Boss stumbled, went down onto her knees. Without thinking, Deekin conjured a tangle of livid energy, threw it at the monster that swooped at her. Imloth followed up, cut it down quickly. Paused long enough to help Boss back up. Deekin saw her rake loose hair out of her eyes and grin, and he knew that meant she still had some fight left in her.

"Gods above," Dakesh grumbled from somewhere behind. "Why in the hells is this thing so _tough?_"

Deekin was inclined to agree, but had no time to comment. He called up a fireball, hurled it almost thoughtlessly, then winced when it exploded a little too close to the other drow. Whatever help Imloth's Seer lady was giving him, he needed to be a little more careful, obviously. Either that, or he would be facing a scorched and angry drow, and he was not sure he needed that, right now.

"Valen!"

He heard the familiar, sharp note in Boss's voice. He swung round. He saw Dakesh leap in front of Goat-man, meet a charging thing head on. Dakesh staggered back, and lost his footing when the thing pressed on, claws sweeping out and snapping against the mercenary's ankles. His sword flicked up, slapped uselessly against its flank. Suddenly furious, Deekin called a whirling sheet of cold, flung it full-bore at the monster. Caught mid-leap, it tipped over, gasping as the spell froze the breath in its mouth. Dakesh rolled back up, gruffly called out his thanks.

Goat-man's flail smashed up against the dragon's spine, and Deekin _felt _it as it ripped clear through the bone. He swung again, and broken bits of bone showered down. Above him, the thick end of the spine swayed. It was like glass breaking – no, not like glass, like ice – like a thin, fragile sheet of ice on a deep, cold lake – tearing.

Deekin knew what ice felt like and smelled like, and the same smell invaded his mouth and nose as the dragon's spine gave way. Plunging down, spearing into damp ground, the ragged ends of the bone seemed to scream as they fell.

The sound filled his head and his thoughts and his blood and it _hurt_.

Every thought of a new spell fled, and he found himself on his knees, hands clamped over his ears.

Goat-man and Dakesh must have finished off the blunt, broken end of the spine, because he heard them moving, and the smacking sound of metal against bone again. Something cold and marrow-deep rushed through him, and he was aware of the silence, and his heart beating too fast.

There were voices after that, the drow mainly, low-toned and practical. Boss and Goat-man, murmuring the kind of things that would usually make him laugh, or joke, or both. Dakesh, wondering aloud if it was really all over, or if they were going to find another contingent of scheming monsters around the next corner.

"Deekin." Warm fingers brushed his arm. "Deeks? It's me."

Boss, questioning and gentle. He shivered, and did not want to open his eyes yet. "Boss? What did Boss feel?"

"It went cold," she said. She knelt beside him, very gently slipped an arm around him. "Very cold. And….everything stopped. They…went away. The wards are broken, Deeks. The dragon's properly dead. It's over."

"Did it hurt Boss?"

"No," she said, sounding slightly strange. "No, it didn't."

He forced his eyes open, realised that he was looking at the inside of her arm, encased in leather and smelling of sweat and blood. "It hurt Deekin."

"Come here." She did not say anything else, just wrapped her arms around him, and hauled him against her, wings and pack and quiver and all.

He listened to her heartbeat, slower than his. Closer to her throat, he noticed that she smelled more of Goat-man and less of sweat. Eventually, once he was aware that he was aching all over, and that she was bleeding onto him, he lifted his head. "Boss?"

"Yes, Deeks?"

"Nothing." He blinked a few too many times, and let her help him up. The air smelled old and musty, and cold, and that was it. Big bits of stone littered the damp earth. The gap between the jagged end of the spine and the back of the skull made him prickle, and he was not sure why. While Imloth handed out healing potions, Deekin made his way past the drow and around the side of the great skull.

It was still white, and still gleamed, but whatever had stayed within it, angry and old and waiting, yes, it was gone. There was nothing but empty space inside, and memories. Shakily, he reached out, touched the side of the skull. It was cold, almost frighteningly so. He wondered where the dragon had flown when it had been alive, and wonderful, and beautiful.

"Deeks?"

He did not turn. "Yes, Boss?"

She sat down beside him, cross-legged. "Are you alright?"

"It be a dragon, Boss. Dragon that killed a lot of humans and drow, Deekin thinks. But…should never have been down here. Should have been out in the open sky. Being a dragon."

She smiled, gently. "Would have been a sight to see."

"Yep." His throat was thick, horribly so, but he dredged up a grin. "But then it would've eaten Boss."

"Oh, really?" She gave him a half-hearted glare. "Thank you for your support."

He touched the side of the skull again. He wondered if it knew what had happened to it, when it was enspelled in death, or even now, freed amid a thunderous breaking of bone and a terrible screaming coldness.

"Boss?"

"Yes?"

"Deekin going to write a song. For the dragon."

***

Jaiyan discovered Valen sitting on a boulder, methodically picking loose fragments of bone off his flail. His face was set in a disgruntled, put-out expression that she was sure had more to do with the state of Devil's Bane that the empty dragon skeleton behind them. She hopped up beside him, flicked a tiny curve of bone away from the haft. "That was…very strange."

"Yes." He did not look up. "I'm not used to fights stopping so…suddenly."

_Devil's Bane, crunching through the spine, and the wards flaring. Something cold, cold enough to set her teeth chattering and her skin crawling. The air rang, and between one choked-out breath and next, the cavern was nearly deserted. _

_ And the dead dragon was just a dead dragon. _

Still rigid with tension, Andaryn checked every corpse for pulse or movement, then promptly demanded that Imloth accompany him on a quick scouting run of the cavern. Imloth agreed, but only after he and Valen scattered the larger pieces of bone that had fallen away from the spine.

"How's your arm?" Valen asked.

"Worse than it looks."

"Healing potions?"

"Already taken them, Mother." She leaned against his shoulder. The odd chill in the air had not dissipated; instead, it clung to her. "I wouldn't like to die down here."

He leaned the flail against the rock, gathered her against him. "Jaiyan?"

"Like the dragon." She could not quite drag her eyes away from it, white and clean and splayed between the rocks. "I wouldn't like to die down here. That's all."

Wordlessly, he kissed her forehead. Despite the cold, hard curve of his breastplate, she curled herself against his chest, pressed herself as close as she could. His arm stayed around her, fingers tangling in wisps of loose hair at her nape.

Imloth returned, Andaryn trailing along behind, reporting that the cavern seemed clear. "Nothing," he said, vaguely perplexed. "There's those we killed, and their blood, and nothing else. Just cold air, and dry earth."

"Well," Dakesh said. "I suggest we take advantage of still being happily alive, and head on back to your drow city as soon as we can. No offence to those of you who grew up down here, but this place makes my skin crawl."

"You're a tiefling," Imloth countered. "What could be so terrifying about a big, empty cave?"

"Oh, that's right. Tieflings are all imperturbable, just like all drow are slippery, sneaky bastards who'll stab you in the kidneys the first chance they get."

Jaiyan snorted, and half-ignored Imloth's clipped retort. She noticed Deekin emerging from behind the dragon's skull, and smiled when he assaulted Dakesh with some ridiculous question concerning tieflings and being scared of the dark. While the drow scavenged for arrows from their fallen opponents, Jaiyan stayed half-draped around Valen, burrowed against his welcome warmth, and with no inclination to move.

Even when Imloth quietly called them all up and marching, she found that her face and her hands were still cold, her feet prickling inside her boots. Deekin walked beside her, and when she reached down to grasp his small hand, he gripped back, and did not let go.


	41. Chapter 41

_**Chapter Forty-One: Return**_

Nathyrra quartered the floor again, spun on her heel, and glared at the locked door. Under her leathers, her shoulders were stiff. Her eyes were sandy and aching, and she _almost_ envied the Seer where she lay, curled on her side beneath soft sheets. Her breathing was uneven, and even from where she stood, Nathyrra could see the sweat that dappled her cheeks.

Beyond the door, the city seethed, she knew. Too swiftly, reports of the vision in the temple had spiraled into wild stories. She had overheard more than a few soldiers muttering about how they might be executed for treason long before any unseen monster darted out of the shadows. Her councilors brought her news of scouts arguing about whether to risk striking out into the darkness, rather than dare wait any longer. Jalraen, packed off to listen to gossip at the tavern, brought word of arguments that had led to five angry fights and nine drow ordered to the infirmary to patch up ugly injuries.

She could hardly order them to give up their weapons, but Eilistraee above, what else were they going to do to each other?

She remembered how the city had simmered those days before their first proper engagement with the Valsharess' troops, how everyone had seemed tired and strained, patience running thin as blown glass.

_But back then, you had more help_.

The Seer was awake and up and hale, and Imloth and Valen kept the recruits in line, while she planned her next scouting mission out into the caverns.

_No. Think of something different_.

Nathyrra spun around again, fists clenching. Not long ago, she had checked on Olortyr and the other three drow who had been in the temple. _Four of them who still lived_, she thought, viciously. She had shouted at the guards to slap the manacles on them and haul them away, and even now she wondered if she should have demanded a handful of quick executions.

_No. The Seer would not want that_.

But the Seer was sleeping, and when Nathyrra checked her pulse again, it felt jumpy and indistinct. She gripped at her dagger hilts and understood that she had little time; she needed the Seer awake, and she needed Imloth and the others back and breathing and bringing news of victory.

_The others_.

Nathyrra scowled, and sat beside the Seer's prone, dreaming shape again.

She had carried her from the temple, trying not to consider how little she seemed to weigh. _Very gently, Nathyrra laid her down. She untied her robes, and rolled her under the sheets. Under closed, tight lids, her eyes flickered. She murmured something not quite audible. _She reached out, clasped the other female's hand, felt the fine tremors running through her. Slowly, trying to distract herself, Nathyrra twisted her fingers through the Seer's beautiful, loose hair, and wished that she did not feel quite so helpless.

***

Under the cold curve of stone, Valen slung his flail across his shoulders and joined Imloth on watch. Sleep had evaded him long enough, and his head felt packed with wool, his eyes gritty. "Anything?"

Imloth shook his head.

Since leaving the cavern and its terrible memories, they had encountered little. Two parties of duergar, the first hungry and exhausted and not really looking for a scrap, and the second hoping for cheap loot from unsuspecting travelers. They had fallen quickly, Valen recalled, mowed down under Devil's Bane and drow swords. Behind a high cliff face, a small drow war party had tried their luck at a hasty ambush, and fled with three of them still able to run properly.

"You need to sleep," Valen said.

Imloth shook his head again. "I need to get back there."

Looking at him, at his pinched frown and narrowed eyes, Valen understood. Almost without thinking, his gaze wandered across the small cave, to where Jaiyan slept fully clothed and curled half around Deekin. His wings were wedged up against her stomach, and she had one arm flung around him. The little kobold had been unusually reticent since the dragon, and Valen had noticed how close he slept to Jaiyan, when he slept at all.

"You'll stay. In Lith My'athar."

"Yes," Imloth said. "We should've…we should never have stayed on the surface. It was stupid…a dream."

"That's not true."

"You don't know that. I don't know that." Imloth scowled. "I should never have thought that it could have worked. We're drow. It can't."

"That's not what's really worrying you," Valen said, bluntly.

"No. I'm worried we'll get back there and there'll be blood in the streets and half of those scouts I trained when they were still young will be dead."

"She will be alright," Valen said in the same tone. "Imloth, she's one of the strongest women I've ever known."

"Yes."

"She stood up against the Valsharess with a handful of rebels, and she survived."

"Yes."

For a long moment, Valen stared down at his hands, linked over one knee. "You love her."

Imloth stiffened. "Those are…not words drow use easily."

Valen nodded slowly, did not press further. "I imagine we won't be staying long. Once everything is quiet, at least."

"I understand."

Watching him sidelong, Valen wanted to say something more, something reassuring and helpful about how much Imloth's friendship meant to him, and about how he was not the only one worried for the Seer's safety. Words failed him, and he settled for simply clasping the drow's shoulder.

For a long moment, Imloth sat there, staring at nothing. Then he gripped Valen's wrist and nodded again. "I'll miss you. Your watch, my friend."

Left alone, Valen leaned back against the cool stone. Without entirely meaning to, he let his gaze roam back to where Jaiyan slept, lips slack and hair unraveling across the pale skin of her throat. Watching her as she breathed evenly, almost peacefully, he found himself longing to see her in sunlight again.

***

Stirring from half-remembered dreams of high stone arches and dripping water, Jaiyan tipped her head back and groaned when she realised the muscles all down one side of her neck had seized up. Gingerly, she extricated herself from Deekin and made it to her feet, still grimacing. A quick look around the small cave showed her Valen, sitting with one knee drawn up and his chin planted on his hand.

"You look rather pensive, my love."

He blinked, and gave her a tired smile. "I've been thinking."

"Never a wise choice, in my opinion."

His smile did not widen. "After this, I've been wondering…what will we do?"

"You mean up on the surface?"

"Yes."

She sank down beside him, leaned the side of her head against his thigh. "Maybe we can waste a few months finding out. Then go find some work somewhere. Go wandering, if you want. Though nowhere cold, please."

"I just…" Absently, he cupped the back of her head, stroked. "I feel as if I should have some plan, something to…give you."

"You mean like a cottage somewhere? With a hearth I'd have to clean?" She shot him a quick grin over her shoulder. "Valen my love, for now, I'm perfectly happy with just you."

"So you…do not mind what we do?"

"Not really. We're both wanderers, Valen. Sometimes we do things for money that no one else will, and sometimes we do it for no money, usually for the same reason." She found the tapping end of his tail, wrapped it idly between her hands. "That, and we're mad, of course. There's always going to be someone or something out there that wants to kill us or eat us or attack us. That's generally the state of affairs when one runs around looking for treasure and adventure while waving a sword around."

"I believe you. I just…I want to be up on the surface with you, and I want to never make a mistake like Sigil again."

She squeezed his knee gently. "That was my fault as well. I pushed you to go back there."

"Yes, but…what if there are other mistakes? What if you begin to doubt me? To doubt us?"

Jaiyan twisted round. There was an uncertain, wary tone beneath his words. "Great gods above, tiefling._ This_ is exactly why sitting all maudlin and tired in the Underdark and trying to think things through is never a good idea. Or did you dig out the last of the brandy and deliberately make yourself miserable?"

He said nothing, only stared at the far rock wall, his expression closed.

"Stubborn tiefling." Firmly, she shoved his knees apart and sat between them, both hands flat against his chest. "When have I ever doubted you, Valen? I've been afraid of that demon blood that sloshes around in you, yes, but when have I ever doubted you?" Somewhere behind the bone-deep exhaustion and the hope that Lith My'athar still stood intact, anger bubbled up. "In Cania? I came after you, into the snow, because I was afraid for you, and because I was damned if I was going to let you freeze your tail off. In Sigil? I was so frightened that I'd lost you, that you'd been killed, but I never doubted you. I love you, you stupid tiefling, and if that's not enough, then…"

His eyes widened. "Oh. Gods. No, no, I never meant _that_…" He scowled furiously. "I'm an idiot."

"Yes, you are." She glared up at him and hissed, "And just so you know, Valen Shadowbreath, if we were anywhere else right now, if this were any other day, I'd've slammed at least three doors, shouted myself hoarse and stormed off somewhere. Clear?"

"Very." His frown deepened. "I'm sorry. I worry."

"I know. You're still an idiot sometimes." She tugged his hands away from where they were laced together. Stared down at them, big and pale and rough. "I love you anyway." She wove her fingers through his. "No more thinking for you, _especially_ down here. Now, let's go wake Imloth and get this all over with."

"It's alright," Imloth said from somewhere nearby, sounding slightly strained. "I'm awake."

Jaiyan flushed guiltily. "Oh. Sorry about that."

Imloth padded across the cave, summoned a smile. "I'll forgive you somehow."

***

Five more days of hard marching took them through twisting ravines and under low hanging outcrops. When the rough terrain finally settled underfoot, and Jaiyan recognized the sweep of the flat plain that led to Lith My'athar, she wondered if she had ever felt quite so grateful to see pale torches lighting the darkness, and the sharp, imposing lines of the city walls behind. Ahead of her, Imloth paused, and he motioned the others closer. Too many times, they had discussed how exactly to approach the city, and even now, trailing along behind with a hand on her sword, Jaiyan could not quite swallow her needling concern. Valen had supported the idea of marching up and demanding entry, which Dakesh seemed to agree with, while the drow stood in favour of a slower, more subtle approach.

Now, with the walls close enough that she could see just how many drow stood behind the crenellations, she simply hoped they made it through the gates without being slaughtered.

Imloth drew his sword. Tilted his head back and gazed up at the soldiers overhead. "Open the gates."

Jaiyan saw them glancing at each other, covering their mouths with their hands and murmuring, while others vanished down the steep steps behind.

"Open the gates," Imloth said again. "The threat is dealt with."

"Commander Imloth?" Shoulders rigid, a drow male stepped forward. "You are…yourselves? You are victorious?"

"Yes. And I would speak with your Matron Mother."

The male's crimson eyes flickered nervously. "There has been…things are not quite as they were."

"Open the gates, then," Imloth demanded, coldly. "I tell you truly, the threat is gone, and you _must_ open the gates."

Behind the crenellations, someone shouted. Another voice responded, as frantic. The male spun around and snarled an order, then repeated it, louder.

The gates swung slowly open. Torchlight flooded through, cut by the jagged silhouettes of the drow soldiers as they darted forward. Sword drawn, Imloth stepped forward to meet them. Aware of how clammy her hands felt, Jaiyan followed, Valen beside her.

"Commander Imloth." Vaulting down the last few steps, the male soldier slid to an ungainly halt. "The Seer is…Commander, she's…not well."

Imloth's whole frame went taut. "Explain yourself."

"She's resting," Nathyrra cut in sharply. Lithe and neatly clad in leathers, she slipped through the press of drow near the steps. "She sleeps, and eats but little. I'm sorry."

"What happened?"

Nathyrra shook her head. Watching her, Jaiyan saw her coiled stance, how her eyes stayed on Imloth a fraction too long, desperately. "She had a vision, and there was treachery."

_Deekin_, Jaiyan thought. _Deekin and the dragon. _

"And?"

"And I was attacked," Nathyrra said. "Her strength saved me."

"Those responsible?"

"In shackles, under guard. Three did not survive."

Imloth's lips thinned. "Still alive, the rest?"

"Yes." Nathyrra's gaze flicked past Imloth's shoulder, lingered on Andaryn. "Perhaps, Commander Imloth, you would care to tell us what happened to you?"

Imloth inclined his head, and Jaiyan realised she was observing a performance. _A performance where you don't quite know all the rules, and good gods, how often do drow have to do this?_

Behind Nathyrra, she could see drow soldiers, armed and muttering, and she supposed that a single wrong word in explanation would trigger violence. Imloth's voice rose, measured and clear and incisive. He spoke of caves and darkness, and blood shed on uncaring rock. Of heroic deeds and sharp swords and angry spirits driven back and finally defeated. Of exhaustion and pain and battle and how the Seer's spells had aided them. "Had she not, I cannot say how many of us would have walked out of there. Some of us. Perhaps none of us."

"It is done, then? And we are safe?"

"Yes, Matron Mother," he said. "We are safe."

"Very well." Nathyrra shot a sharp glance at the drow milling behind her. "To your posts, all of you."

Imloth stood stock-still until the other drow melted away, prowling back up the steps to the crenellations, or else heading back down the narrow avenues that Jaiyan remembered led to the armoury and the forge. When he finally moved, loosening his grip on his sword, she saw that his face was slick with sweat. "Where is she?"

"In her chambers." Nathyrra unhooked a key from her belt, passed it to him. "Imloth?"

He was already six paces away. "What?"

"It's good to see you."

He stopped, and managed a smile, and a nod. "And you, Matron Mother."

"It's good to see all of you." Nathyrra's eyes flicked back to Andaryn. "There are rooms at the temple already prepared for you."

"_Is_ it safe?" Valen asked.

"As well as it can be," she answered. "I need the Seer up, and I need a few traitors executed, preferably publicly."

"She won't allow it."

"She might." Nathyrra smiled, all teeth. "Had you been any later, I would have spared them the embarrassment and her the decision and just slaughtered them in their cells, in any case. Andaryn?"

"Yes, Mistress?"

"Come with me. I need to see you."

His eyebrows shot up. "_Now_, Mistress?"

"Yes. Now." Without waiting, she spun on her heel.

For a long moment, Andaryn gazed after her with a strange, bewildered expression clouding his face. Then the corners of his mouth twitched, and he trailed after her.

"You know," Jaiyan said absently, "I think that's the first time I've seen him smile." Shrugging, she turned, and touched Deekin's shoulder. "Are you alright?"

The little kobold nodded slowly. "Yep."

"Sure?"

"Boss, if Boss wants to leave with Goat-man, Boss can. Deekin be fine."

She grinned. "I know. I'm just…I was worried about you."

He blinked up at her. "Deekin be alright. Deekin might go to the tavern."

"Alright. Remember to eat. And let us know if there's any kind of uprising, rebellion, attack or general chaos, yes?"

"_Boss_. Don't be silly."

She laughed, and let Valen lead her away, through dark streets and past pools of pale torchlight and finally across the wide plaza in front of the temple. Up the steps, and silently past the trio of guards, who simply inclined their heads. She leaned against him as they climbed the last set of stairs, and stayed as close as his armour would allow until they were through the door.

While Valen latched the door, she ambled through into the adjoining chamber, noted that the bath was temptingly full, steaming twining up. "How do they do that? Keep the water hot?"

"The old-fashioned, normal way, I suppose."

"What, drow magic?"

"Dedicated servants."

Unbuckling her sword belt, she snorted and padded back through. Tossed the sword down unceremoniously. She kicked out of her leathers, let them and her belt and gloves fall haphazardly across the floor. Turning, she looked back at Valen, and grinned when he struggled out of his armour. The underpadding and shirt followed, and she was across the floor in four strides. "You do that deliberately, don't you?"

"Do what?"

"Stand around half-naked when you just know I'm looking at you."

Valen smiled. "Yes. I'm cruel like that, my love."

"You are." Thoughtfully, she traced her fingers across his chest, heard his breath catch. Her hand wandered down to his belt, then lower, gently kneading.

"Oh." His eyes closed, and he rocked his hips against her instinctively. "Oh. I…shouldn't we clean ourselves up first?"

"And waste such a quick reaction?" Jaiyan unsnapped his belt buckle, heard him groan softly. "I don't think we'd make it into the bath. Besides, I've been sleeping close to you for far too long without being able to get my hands on you. All of you, in fact." She shot him another wicked grin before hooking her fingers into his breeches and yanking them down. She leaned in to kiss the pale lines of old scars and muscle that mapped his stomach. She let herself meander lower, stopping to gently brush her mouth against white skin.

"Oh. You…are such a tease."

"I know." She slid to her knees and gripped his hips, holding him place when he tried to move again. "Stay still."

He growled, but obeyed, and she heard him inhale sharply when she kissed her way along the top of his thighs.

"That probably isn't a good idea," he managed.

"Oh?" She wrapped a hand around him and stroked slowly. "Why?"

"I'm not going to last and you know it."

She smirked up at him, loving the flush that crossed his cheeks. "You can make it up to me later, I promise."

***

In the tavern, Deekin sat with his feet curled up under him and a bowl of spicy stew on the table beside his elbow. He listened to the drow around him, murmuring to each other, whispering of how Commander Imloth had proclaimed the city safe, and whether it was true or not. The innkeeper shouted them down, told them they were fools for daring to disbelieve either the commander or the Seer, and quite firmly ordered them another round of drinks. Thinking on it, Deekin decided he never would have guessed that Imloth could be quite so good with words. His style of embellishment was nowhere near as poetic as it could have been, of course, but Deekin appreciated big words, and he wondered now if Imloth had ever read many ballads.

Opposite, hunched over a tankard, Dakesh gave the crowd near the bar a wary, sidelong look.

"Dakesh not need to look _quite_ so threatening."

The mercenary grunted. "Perhaps, but one of those drow _breathes_ at me the wrong way, and I sharpen my sword on the lot of them."

Deekin swirled the spoon through the stew, inhaled the delightful, rich smell. "Better being here than being out there."

The mercenary grunted again.

"Or maybe Dakesh _like_ running around in the dark being chased by things he not see?"

"_No_."

Deekin scooped up a steaming chunk of meat. "Then why Dakesh come along?"

"Oh, gods above." The mercenary flattened his hands on the table. "You know damn well why. I don't know anyone else. I don't know this world of yours yet. And besides, I've gotten rather good at carving things apart."

Deekin ate silently for a long while, enjoying the simple fact of sitting on a real bench that was on a real wooden floor, under the ceiling of a real tavern. The drow patrons and unidentifiable stew seemed inconsequential, in comparison. He vaguely supposed that he should be perfectly at home in caves and low-roofed tunnels, and wondered if too much time on the surface with Boss had spoiled him. Well, if it had, maybe that was not such a bad thing, after all. By the time he cleaned out the bowl, and the mercenary started in on his second tankard, he was pleasantly drowsy. He thought he knew how he would begin his song for the dead dragon, but he needed to be alone for that, and clear-headed, so it could wait.

Dakesh scrubbed a hand through his dark hair. "So what exactly am I meant to do here now that everything's all safe and harmless again?"

Deekin grinned. "Eat drow food. Go spar with drow soldiers. Or maybe Dakesh could go find some nice pretty drow lady to be distracted by?"

The mercenary groaned. "No, thank you. I prefer to survive my bedroom encounters with my dignity and my skin mostly intact."


	42. Chapter 42

_As usual, Bioware owns everything. Also, an apology for the delay - the story is very much drawing to a close, 2 or maybe 3 chapters to go after this one. I can't imagine writing these characters again, so I'm rather paranoid about getting their swansong right. Also, a very big thank-you to everyone who's read their way through this - it turned out much longer than I thought it would :) _

_**Chapter Forty-Two: Negotiations **_

Nathyrra locked the door and stopped, hands braced against the polished wood. She was aware of him behind her, his gaze on her shoulders, and she wondered if he could hear how hard her heart thumped. "Were you hurt?"

"No. Not really. Though you should have given me more arrows, Mistress." A thread of amusement wound through his voice.

"I'll remember that." She turned, slowly, and drew in a slow, relieved breath. "For next time, you understand."

"Indeed? I'm beginning to wish your guards had simply caved my head in at the gates."

"Oh, I don't think you wish that." For a long, silent moment, she simply looked at him, drinking in the sharp planes of his face, his bright, challenging eyes. Almost thoughtfully, she reached out, unbuckled the strap that held his quiver in place. She let it fall, and his bow followed. Turning her attention to his sword belt, she ignored his smirk.

"Tell me, Mistress. Did you lock me in here _just _so you could disarm me?"

"I thought we might come to an agreement."

"Another negotiation, Mistress? What are we to trade this time? I fear we have too few secrets left." He grinned. "And besides, you are still armed. An unfair advantage, don't you think?"

"And since when did _fairness_ have anything to with this?" Nevertheless, she unfastened her weapon belt, let it and her daggers fall behind her. Raising her head, she saw an odd, unguarded expression cross his face. "Will you stay?"

"How can I not? You have the key."

"In the city."

"With you."

"Yes," she said, quietly.

He arched an indolent eyebrow. "And what could you possibly want from me?"

He was close to her, infuriatingly so, and she found herself staring at the thin scars that curved down the slope of his cheek and disappeared under his chin. He was _enjoying_ this, damn him. "What do you think?"

"I don't know, Mistress." His smile widened, taunting. "Why don't you tell me?"

"Don't call me that."

He inclined his head. "Then why don't you tell me…Nathyrra?"

Her skin tightened, all over. An unfamiliar feeling, not unpleasant, and quite like anticipation, the clinical part of her mind noted. She stared into his scarlet eyes, grabbed two handfuls of his hair, and kissed him.

He did not recoil; did not even go loose in her grasp and let her steer things. Instead, his arms locked around her, and he responded, just as insistently. His body was flush against hers, unabashed and warm. She clung to him, sliding her hands down around his shoulders and gripping. His mouth was hot and wet and demanding. Her eyes were closing, her thoughts scattering, and she realized she no longer cared if she guided him to the bed, or if he led her. "Andaryn…"

He gazed at her, his red eyes wary. Each harsh breath against her face stirred the loose strands of her hair. "I am not your plaything," he said, his voice uneven. "I am not some toy to be cast aside the instant you see some other male that turns your head and takes your fancy."

"Then you will have to keep my attention, won't you?" She tangled her hands in his hair, pulled his head forward again. "Unless you don't mind being _shared?_"

"No. Not as long as the female you share me with is comely."

She laughed, but something else burst through, something desperate. "Do you know how it felt, knowing that I had to send you back out into the darkness? Gods above, Andaryn. I nearly lost this city because of _you_. Do you think you can get away from me that simply?"

Andaryn smiled. "I would never dream of such a thing, Mistress."

She tightened her grasp on his hair. "Don't call me that."

"Yes, Mistress." He grinned, and covered her mouth with his. "Nathyrra."

She went to work on the buckles across his chest and shoulder, slipping them free and yanking the straps loose. The black, fitted armour pieces fell away quickly, and she turned her attention to the leathers beneath. He laughed again, and helped her, leaning down to kick his boots off.

"You still have the advantage," he said mildly. "Or were you intending that I should merely stand around naked for your pleasure?"

"Only as a start." Pausing, she let herself look at him properly. In the light of the hanging oil lamps, he was slender and muscled, obsidian skin striped with long scars. White hair falling in thick waves past narrow shoulders. "Though you are rather pleasing to look at."

Almost thoughtfully, she reached up, touched his hair. She found the tapered end of his ear, half-buried beneath white locks. Andaryn tilted his head against her palm, eyes closing. She tugged his head down, leaned in to nip at his ear. When he growled appreciatively, she turned her attention to the other one, scraping her teeth across the soft, black skin.

Andaryn's hands flew to the ties on her leathers, and she slapped him away. Sliding out of his grasp, she wrestled them loose. The shirt beneath followed, and warm air touched her skin. Quite deliberately, she straightened up slowly, flicked her braids back over her shoulder.

He was looking at her through his eyelashes, hungrily. "Beautiful," he murmured.

"I have your approval, then, male?"

"Oh, yes."

She kissed him again, roughly, letting their teeth clash. With her mouth still sealed against his, she glided backwards, drawing him with her. When her calves bumped against the bed, she sank down. He arched over her, his feet still on the floor and the delightful heat of his body a taunting inch above her. His lips found her ear, and she hissed, curving up against him. She grasped his head and shoved him down, shivering when he kissed a slow trail across her stomach.

Not gently, he bit the inside of her thigh. She bucked up against him, and he grabbed her hips, held her down. "I can't do this properly if you move, you know."

"Oh, I think you can." Even so, she forced herself still. She twisted her fingers in his hair, and stiffened when his lips brushed her. Slowly, as if he had all the time he needed, he explored the damp cleft between her thighs.

Nathyrra twisted on the sheets. _Damn him, he _knew_ how to use his tongue. _"Oh. Andaryn…"

He laughed against her, did not lift his head. Using the same, tortuous pace, he teased her until she shook under him. _No_, she thought. _Too quickly. Not this quickly_. She yanked his head up, silenced his protests with a forceful kiss. She could taste herself inside his mouth. She slid her hand below his waist, and he groaned aloud. He was impossibly, beautifully hard, and his whole frame quivered when she stroked him. His fingers roamed across her, tangling in the loose ends of her hair. Nathyrra leaned in, nuzzled his throat. She licked at the soft, vulnerable skin there and tasted sweat and desperation.

She wriggled away from him, enjoying the way his hands swept down her sides, kneading. Her blood was pounding hard between her legs, and she needed him inside her and moving. "I want you," she said. "Now."

"I know." His fingers travelled down to her hips, and he shifted, as if to move beneath her. His grip tightened, and she knew he meant to roll her on top of him.

But she did not want him like that, pliable and entirely under her control. "Andaryn, wait."

He stayed poised while she turned, so that her back slid against his chest. She guided his hand up her until he cupped her breasts, and she moaned when she felt him, nudging between her thighs. "I want you like this."

His other hand traced down her back. "Are you certain?" His voice held a hitched note of hesitation. "Nathyrra?"

She rolled her hips against his, and heard him gasp as she sheathed him inside her. "Yes, I'm certain." Her own voice caught, but she no longer cared. "Please?"

Andaryn leaned forward, his skin sliding against hers. His lips brushed her ear. "Anything you command."

She snapped her hips back again, and growled, "Then _now_, male."

He laughed, and it sounded slightly strangled. With his mouth firmly pressed against the tip of her ear, he thrust into her. She moved with him, matching his pace. One of his hands dug against her hip, while the other vised into her hair, hauling her head back. She could hear him breathing raggedly beneath the wonderful sound of his skin meeting hers. Andaryn sank his teeth into her shoulder, and she cried out. The pain was sharp and heady. She was close again suddenly, too close, and she wanted to see his face. Twisting away from him, she ignored his disappointed murmur. She shoved him onto his back and was on him an instant after, straddling his hips.

"_Oh_." Stretched out beneath her, he threw his head back. "Nathyrra."

He shifted, leaning up, and she held him place. "Stay still."

He grinned, all teeth. "Make me, Mistress."

She raked her nails across his chest, heard him gasp in a quick breath. His hips snapped up, and she fought back the urge to give in entirely, to let herself go. He murmured her name again, low and strained. She gripped his shoulders, bracing herself as she quickened her rhythm. Close to frantic, she burrowed under his jaw, sucked and nipped. He tasted salty and slick and right. He grabbed at her hair, pulled her head up to his. He kissed her ear again, and the sudden, startling pressure of his teeth sent her over the edge. She gasped his name, and closed her eyes as the climax took her, shuddering and relentless.

Andaryn cried out. Still trembling, she was aware of him arching up into her, loosing himself. He wrenched her head to one side, and kissed her, messily and demanding.

For a long, drowsy moment, she let herself lie there, sprawled across his chest. His skin was hot, and he was still buried in her. She could feel his heartbeat, leaping too fast.

His hands played down the curve of her back. "Nathyrra?"

"Yes?"

"Is there any particular reason that you didn't lock me in here with you _before_ you sent me out?"

She laughed, softly. "I wondered the same thing. And no, none that would suffice, I fear." Reluctantly, she rolled off him. She felt drained, and she ached, in the most delicious way. "Well, you know what they say about lost time. And making up for it."

Andaryn leaned up on one elbow. "Did you mean what you said?"

"About you staying?"

"Yes."

"Yes, I did." She curled up on her side, watched him thoughtfully. "I would very much like it if you stayed. Besides, after all the trouble you've proven to be, don't you think I deserve _something_ for siding with you?"

"Something," he said, smiling strangely. "Everything. Whichever you prefer, Mistress."

She opened her mouth to snarl something sarcastic, and stopped. Instead, she guided him over onto his side so she could look at him. His hair was damp with sweat at his temples, clinging to his face in tempting disarray. She traced his cheekbone, the severe line of his jaw, the hollow of his throat. Idly trailing her hand lower, she followed the long, curving scar that that crossed one side of his chest and disappeared under his ribs.

He sat there silently, watching her as she touched him, an odd, bemused frown on his face. "I made you bleed."

She blinked, and realised that he meant her shoulder. She twisted, saw that the skin was broken, and tiny scarlet droplets dotted her hair. "I'm sure I'll find some penance for you."

His half-smile returned. "May I hazard a guess that this penance may result in the same transgression?"

"Oh, I think it might."

The Seer turned over, tried to shrug off the uneasy threads of her dreams. Under her cheek, the pillow was soft. Keeping her eyes closed, she let herself feel the shape of the room, and the way the air moved. There was someone in here with her, she realised, someone sitting quietly and unthreateningly, perched on the end of the bed. She could smell weapon oil and leather and skin, and she _knew_. She wondered if the dreams were fogging her thoughts, but even so, she bit her lip, and murmured, "Imloth?"

"I'm here," he answered. The bed creaked as he moved, and clasped her hands between his.

She smiled and opened her eyes. Turning over, she nestled herself against his thigh. "I missed you."

"I know." His fingers played down the slope of her cheek, tangled in her hair.

"You were injured."

"I'm fine."

"Don't lie to me, Imloth." The Seer sat up slightly, enjoyed how his eyes widened when the sheets slipped off her shoulders. "I can smell the blood on you." She frowned. "I can also smell all sorts of dreadful things on you."

He laughed. "Forgive me. I wanted to see you. I haven't washed yet."

"How long have you been in here?"

"A while. I didn't want to disturb you."

She traced small circles around his knee. "What happened at the gates?"

"They let us in, eventually." He sighed. "They had our word that it was over, and nothing more. I should probably be grateful that they let us in at all."

"We need to call the council, then," she said thoughtfully. She pushed upright, and swayed.

Imloth caught her tenderly. "You're worn out."

"I'll be alright. I have to be alright." She leaned against his shoulder. "I dream, all the time, exhausting dreams of the caves and the dragon." A tremor ran through her, and she wrapped her arms around him, ignoring his murmured warning about the buckles and sharp edges on his armour.

"I'm here," he said again.

She drew in a slow breath. Perhaps, she thought, perhaps they could begin again in the city. Properly, and without treachery. "My robes?"

"Here." Gently, he slipped out of her embrace. He lifted her robes from the back of her chair, helped her into them. She glanced down, watched the nimble motion of his hands as he tied off the knots. His head lifted, and he smiled, tremulously. "I…I missed you."

"You look like you wanted to say something…else?"

He ducked his head. "No, I…we need to call the council."

"No," she said, slowly. "We need to call _everyone_."

"Everyone?"

"Yes." She looked up into his pale eyes, and pushed back the urge to simply hide herself in his arms until she was certain that he was back, and still real. "To the main hall in the temple. For far too long, this city has been split by rumours and fear. I will let that stand no longer."

When the summons came, Jaiyan was in the midst of wrestling a brush through the tangles in her hair. She dragged the bristles through a vindictively insistent knot and swore. "This is absurd. I helped kill a damn arch-devil, and now I'm soundly defeated by my own hair."

"A most valiant foe indeed." Valen shoved up to his feet, made it to the door before the second round of persistent knocking could start.

Jaiyan peered around him, saw a slim, harried-looking drow. A handful of words were exchanged, and Valen turned back from the door, frowning. "We're needed," he said, before she could ask. "In the temple."

"Trouble?"

"I'm not sure." Valen slung his flail across his shoulders. "Are you ready?"

"Yes." She shifted the weight of her sword on her hip and nodded. "Lead on, tiefling."

They discovered the main room of the temple thronged with drow. The air was heavy and scented with the incense pooling from near the statues. Beneath the white lamps, the polished stone floor swam. On the dais, the Seer sat on the tall stone chair. Jaiyan noticed Nathyrra next, coiled and silent beside the Seer's shoulder. Imloth on the chair's other side, and the drow scout, Andaryn, flanking Nathyrra. On the far side, she saw five drow, all of them female, and all of them with their hands roughly crossed behind their spines and shackled, heads defiantly raised.

She remembered the cold, frightening stone of the cell in Sigil, and the heaviness of the manacles on her wrists, and shivered.

She trailed behind Valen, edging between drow soldiers, and up to the dais. The Seer's voice rang out, calling for order and silence again. Nearby, someone muttered something guttural and angry in drow.

"Be silent," the Seer said, firmly, and not in her own language. She waited, hands clasped in her lap, while Valen steered Jaiyan onto the dais beside Imloth.

Jaiyan stepped back, bumped into the tiefling's solid shape behind her. She was terribly aware of too many drow, most of them armed, and all of them gazing up at the Seer. She dragged her eyes away from them, found Dakesh and Deekin, somewhere near the door.

"The city is safe," the Seer said. "_We _are safe. The spirits that threatened us, threatened our peace, are ended. Sent into the death they were denied."

"Who was it?" Tall and leanly muscled, a drow scout shouldered through the crowd. "Who?" he demanded again. "Who set these things against us?"

"The Valsharess," the Seer answered. "She wished them contained, and used for her own ends, likely against us."

The scout scowled. "And who created them? The Valsharess was no sorceress while she lived. Not like that, Seer."

"Halaster," the Seer said, almost immediately. "Halaster created them. In a vision, Eilistraee showed me. He sent his own allies against a great dragon, and when they died, he cursed them in death to rise in vengeance. He trapped the creature's soul, and the souls of all those who fell, and trapped them in that place."

Startled murmurs rippled through the assembled drow. Jaiyan leaned back against Valen and murmured, "Halaster? That daft bastard?"

Andaryn twisted round and glared at her. "You know of him?"

She grinned, wickedly. "Yes. Had a run-in with him once. He laid a geas on me."

"And they will trouble us no more?" The same scout pushed forward. "You are _certain?_"

"Yes," the Seer answered. "I am certain. They are ended."

"Eilistraee showed you?"

"Yes," she said, in the same measured tone. "My Goddess showed me. Eilistraee showed me in the same way she showed me the saviour who would bring death to the Valsharess."

Jaiyan cringed and silently hoped that maybe every single drow looking at her might suddenly vanish.

"Is it true?" The scout gazed up at her, and she noticed the thick, grayish scar that travelled across his chin and dipped down behind his collar. "Please, surfacer. I was at the fortress when you went in to kill the Valsharess. Is it true?"

"Yes," she said, and winced when her voice cracked. Valen's hands settled on her shoulders, gently squeezed. "Yes. It's true." Louder, she added, "The dragon is truly dead, and everyone cursed by its death are gone. It is as the Seer told you."

She swallowed, and forced herself to keep looking at the scout. _They're not moving_, she thought anxiously. _They're not saying anything. They're just…staring_. _They're armed and they're just staring and oh, gods, do you think they'll let you get out of here alive? _

"It's true," she repeated. Beside her, she half-saw Imloth shifting his weight. "The Seer speaks nothing less than the _truth_. Are you hearing me? Has she _ever_ spoken anything other than the truth? She knew my name and knew I would come here and knew I would kill the Valsharess. She knew Valen's name, and that he would come here. She knew because Eilistraee told her."

"Did Eilistraee tell her to leave us?" Chain jangled as Olortyr shoved upright. "Did she?"

"No," the Seer answered softly. "She did not. The fault for that is mine alone."

"_Fault?_ It was no fault, Seer. It was betrayal."

Silence descended, brittle and impatient.

Jaiyan bit the inside of her cheek. The back of her neck was prickling, and when she breathed in, the incense rolled over her tongue. "Betrayal?" _What you doing? They're going to kill you. _"You'd talk about betrayal, while _you're_ the one in shackles?"

Olortyr's head snapped round. "You know nothing of what you speak, surfacer."

"Don't I? I was down here quite a while before I killed the Valsharess. I never saw anyone hauled away in manacles before. In fact, I don't remember hearing anyone protesting about the Seer staying on the surface a while." Jaiyan forced a nasty grin. "Back then, it was all vows to follow Nathyrra and rebuild the city. Seems to me you've decided it's treachery because something went wrong and _you_ couldn't fix it and the Seer wasn't here to jump in and save you. Seems dreadfully human of you."

"Surfacer, you have _no idea_…"

"I think I do, actually." Under her leathers, her heart was pounding, and she wondered which of the drow nearest was going to gut her first. _Well, if you're lucky, Valen will notice and flatten them before they get too close_. "There was nothing for you to see to fight, and you were afraid, so you fought each other."

The Seer stood. Wordlessly, she stepped past Nathyrra, crossed the dais to the prisoners. "Olortyr. Do you still trust in Eilistraee?"

"Yes."

"Do you still trust me?"

"I…no." Olortyr's eyes darted desperately. "I want to."

"I will stay," the Seer said, and her voice rang out and filled the high stone arches. "I will stay, and Nathyrra will remain your Matron Mother, if she wishes it."

"No. Seer, she…"

"Did nothing but use the authority that _you all gave her_ in fealty."

Around the Seer's small, delicate frame, the air flickered. Watching, Jaiyan narrowed her eyes. _Is _she_ doing that, or…?_

"You will be set free," the Seer continued. She gestured, and the shackles dropped, clanged harmlessly against black basalt. "You will go without weapons until I am satisfied that you can be trusted."

Olortyr's lips thinned. "And the outsider?"

"Will remain, if he wishes. This has always been a city of exiles and outcasts, and I will not have that change." Slowly, she raised both hands, and pale light glowed between her fingers. "If I have to stay within these walls until my life runs out to keep you alive, I will. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," Olortyr said, quietly.

As deliberately, the Seer turned, swept her pale gaze across the assembled drow. "Do you understand me?" she said again, and _something else_ threaded through her voice, something deep and ancient that made Jaiyan's teeth ache. "This city is open to all who would flee Lolth and Matron Mothers who would keep unwilling subjects loyal through slavery and violence. We turn away _no one_ who wishes sanctuary. There are great and terrible things out in the darkness, and we are needed. _Do you understand me?_"

The male scout stepped up to the dais and inclined his head. "Mother Seer. Forgive me."

"Forgive fear?" The Seer smiled. "Fear takes the best of us."

"What must I do?"

"Now? Send soldiers to the walls and see that they are guarded."

"Mother Seer, we…"

"I know." Very gently, she reached out, touched the scout's face. "Now go, and do what needs to be done."

The scout nodded, and called for soldiers to follow him. Others marshaled beside them, and Jaiyan heard orders for blacksmiths to return to the forges, for younger recruits to take themselves back to the practise fields and busy themselves with bows and swords. Scouting parties to be called up, and merchants to gather and discuss how best to go about reopening the tentative trade routes with the closest duergar outpost.

On the dais, Olortyr watched as they filed out, her face stiff and unreadable. "Seer, what would you have me do?"

"What _would_ you do?"

"I would go to the walls," Olortyr said unevenly. "And join the guards."

"Then go," the Seer answered. "I will see you tomorrow, you and your friends, and the next day, and the next, until I am satisfied."

Olortyr ducked her head. "Yes, Seer."

Jaiyan waited until the temple doors swung closed on Olortyr's heels. Then she sagged back against Valen's broad chest and muttered, "Well, that was horrible."

Deekin hopped up onto the dais, Dakesh not far behind. "Boss?"

"Yes, Deekin?"

"Next time Boss gives stirring speech, maybe Boss could use bigger words?"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, I'm sorry. Should I have planned ahead? Written it all down?"

"Might've made it better, Boss."

"You're such a critic, kobold. I'm just happy I didn't get skewered for being an impertinent surfacer." She let herself lean into Valen's welcome embrace for another long moment before straightening up. "Is that really it?"

"No," the Seer answered, softly. "It will not be easy, but it is the beginning."

"Seer," Nathyrra said, uncertainly. "Did you…did you mean it, about me remaining as Matron Mother?"

"Of course. You are proud, Nathyrra, but you are very strong."

"Oh." Nathyrra's gaze darted before fixing on the Seer again. "I…yes. Perhaps…perhaps you could help me? In some kind of advisory capacity?"

"Yes," she said. The corners of her mouth curved up. "I would be honoured."


	43. Chapter 43

_Bioware, as always, owns most things. Also, there's a sequence in here that is very much dedicated to Gaspode...I'm sure she'll recognise it, and I hope she likes it :) _

_**Chapter Forty-Three: Farewells**_

Imloth ran the whetstone down the length of the blade again. The sound was rasping, the clean shine to the sword comforting. How long had it been, he wondered, since he had sat in this windowseat, in the Seer's chambers? Cleaning his sword or fletching arrows while he heard scouting reports or endured Valen's scathing complaints concerning the younger recruits. Reading lists of supplies and trying to decide who to send out into the caves to barter with the duergar.

But the prodding thought followed, that it was _not_ the same room, and nor was the city quite the same, and nor would it ever be, not quite.

"You're going to wear that sword into dust if you keep doing that," the Seer said mildly from where she sat at her writing-table.

He eyed the blade critically. "It's got a little life in it yet, I think."

"Your armour hasn't," she said pointedly.

"What?" He grinned. "There's nothing wrong with my armour."

"Imloth." She dropped her quill, pushed up out of the chair. "Normally I wouldn't _dare_ to presume, but if you go looking for your armour today, you will not find it."

"Scandalous."

"Indeed. Your armour will be brought to the temple tomorrow after every blacksmith I could find has finished making it even slightly presentable."

"And if there is some kind of rebellion, or uprising?"

"Oh, I'm sure we can find _something_ for you to wear." She paused in front of him. A smile threatened at the corners of her mouth. "Forgive me?"

"Oh, I think so." He straightened the ties at the neck of her robe. "That armour's seen a lot."

"So have you." Thoughtfully, she cupped his chin. "So have we both."

"Yes." He grasped her collar, gently guided her down into a slow, lingering kiss. "We're still here though."

"Yes." She kissed his eyelids, then his mouth again.

He wrapped his arms around her, and was about to pull her onto his lap when a knock at the door made him sigh. "Well, that's not fair at all."

"No, it isn't." Smiling, the Seer disentangled herself from him, and called out, "Jaiyan? Come in."

The door opened, and the surfacer girl frowned suspiciously. "How did you know it was me? Or did you just foresee it?"

"Your footsteps are…different, compared to a drow's," the Seer answered, still smiling.

"Heavier?"

"Clumsier," Imloth said.

"Charming." Jaiyan let the door swing closed, joined the Seer at the small table. "Seer, I…"

"You are leaving," the Seer said, softly. She found the wine pitcher, filled a glass and pushed it across.

"Yes." Jaiyan wrapped both hands around the glass stem. She scowled down into the pale wine, and Imloth was reminded again of how _young_ this surfacer girl was. He remembered how she had seemed to him in Sigil, in the tunnel, with the deep shadows of exhaustion circling her eyes and her face all full of frightened desperation. How she had been in the city the last time, pretending that all was well, while the Valsharess gathered her troops, and she was sent out into the darkness, messiah to a prophecy she barely knew.

"And I…we won't be coming back."

"I know." The Seer touched the back of the girl's hands. "Please…do not think it any kind of offense. You are a creature of the surface, Jaiyan, and something of a wanderer. You and Valen both, I think."

"Yes." She gulped down two inches of the wine. "I think Valen would want to see you before we go. In private, I mean. He's going to miss you. You mean a lot to him."

The Seer smiled. "He means a lot to me. He always has. It pleases me to see him happy with you."

"Oh, gods. I thought drow weren't meant to be at all soppy."

"Only occasionally."

"What will you do?"

"Here?" The Seer tipped her head to one side. "Continue on as we have. There is little else we can do."

"You're going to miss the surface," Jaiyan said.

Not a question, and Imloth felt something in his chest twist. _The rain and the wind and the smell of coldness in the air and the way the sunlight flooded his eyes at noon. _"Yes," he answered. "But there is more to be done down here."

"You could come back up, if you wanted." Jaiyan chewed on her lower lip. "Durnan would look after you."

"No," the Seer murmured. "Even if we wanted to. I miss the moonlight, Jaiyan. I miss it enough that it seems to fill my dreams. But there are too many drow still locked in fealty to Lolth and their mistresses, and I would see that those who escape that slavery are given a place to live, in safety."

"I understand. It's just…thank you. For what you did in Sigil. For coming for us."

"I would not have left you there," the Seer said, and her voice turned steely. "Neither of you."

Jaiyan nodded, awkwardly. She lifted the glass again, drained it. "Well, that was really all I wanted to say. Just…thank you."

"You are most welcome." The Seer touched the girl's hair where the thick brown locks fell past her shoulder. "Be well, Jaiyan."

"We'll try. Seer?"

"Yes?"

She sat silently a moment longer, before blurting, "When I said in the temple that you knew Valen would come here, did you? Know, I mean?"

"Yes, I knew. I did not know in the same way that I knew you would come here."

"What do you mean?"

"When I dreamed of you," she answered, slowly, "I knew the day. I did not know about Halaster, but I knew that Nathyrra would find you when I sent her. I knew Valen would come here, but not when, or even how he would manage it."

"Oh. Good." The girl scowled again. "I just…had this awful feeling that I'd lied to them on your behalf."

Before he could quite help himself, Imloth grinned. "Moral conflict, Jaiyan? Around drow?"

"Very funny." She pushed up from the table, gave him a withering glare. "Well, I have a tiefling to round up. We'll be leaving in the morning. Or whatever passes for morning around here."

"Jaiyan, wait." Imloth vaulted off the windowseat. He scooped up a wrapped package from the table. "Here."

"I didn't know you cared."

"It's for Durnan," he said wryly, and pushed it into her hands. "Don't drop it."

She nodded slowly and smiled. "Do you want me to tell him anything?"

"Tell him…" Imloth stopped. _Tell him you wished you could've spent more time up there. Tell him the whiskey probably wasn't all that bad. Tell him you wished you could've had that riding lesson. _"Tell him to have a drink for me."

"Course I will." For a long moment, she gazed at him through dark blue eyes. Then she wrapped one arm around his shoulders and pulled him into a rough, companionable hug. He froze, not quite sure what to do, but she stepped away from him quickly, and grinned. "Take care of her, won't you?"

He opened his mouth to say something sardonic, but the words died again. "I will."

After the door closed on Jaiyan's heels, Imloth found himself not quite able to tear his gaze up from the floor.

"Imloth?" The Seer's arms slipped around his waist, and her slim shape molded against him, her chest pressing delightfully against his back. "What is it?"

He turned around in her embrace. Silently, he stood there until his throat stopped aching. "I will take care of you," he said, fiercely. He buried his face in her hair, breathing in the scent of herbs and warmth. Before his nerve failed him entirely, he murmured, and not in their own language, "I love you."

Some absurd, half-hidden part of him expected shock, anger, even that he might be sent out. Drow did not throw such words around, much in the voices used by surfacers. He felt her go rigid against him, and he wondered if he had made some terrible mistake. She cupped his chin, gently guided him so that she could look up into his face. She was whispering to him, he realised, his name, and other words in drow. He wondered if he had been around surfacers too long, because the sounds were soft and sibilant, and tender. He wanted to ask if he had done the right thing, but she captured his mouth with her own, and his thoughts fled.

Idly, and with her fingers hooked through her belt, Jaiyan ambled across the marketplace. Drogan would never have believed it, she decided, but she was once again feeling rather morose at the thought of leaving a drow city. _Still, Drogan would never have believed you stupid enough to think going to Sigil would be a good choice. _

_ "Strange how the world turns, lass. Stranger still, the people we meet in it."_

_ She propped her feet up on the table and shrugged. "Tell me that again when I've seen more than just frozen woods and too much snow." _

_ "Never know, lass. Might not be around to tell you."_

_ She snatched her tankard up again and grimaced. "You're old as the hills, Drogan, and just as stubborn. You'll be around a while yet." _

Except he had not been, and she supposed that he had been right, he and all those storytellers who held that life was no more than a pattern of meetings and partings.

Jaiyan scowled, shook her head, and quite firmly shoved such thoughts away. With one hand on her sword hilt, she ducked through the tavern door, and into the blue haze of smoke and incense. Blinking, she dodged a trio of drow dressed in the dark leathers of scouts, and shouldered her way through to the bar. She could already hear the distinctive, plangent sound of Deekin's lute as he struck his way through some forlorn song. She wondered if he was singing about the dragon, but when she listened, she heard a stanza she recognized.

_That silly song about the two parted lovers, and the shipwreck. And it made you all wet-eyed the first time you heard it. _

She accepted the tankard the drow innkeeper pushed across to her, inclined her head. Enjoying the low murmur of footsteps and conversation, she wound her way to the table in the corner. Where she found Valen and Dakesh, both studiously staring down into their drinks.

"Don't stop gushing at each other on my behalf." Jaiyan grinned and slid onto the bench alongside Valen.

"On the contrary," Dakesh said lightly. "You arrived at a lull in the discussion."

"I'm sure I did."

"Of course you did. We were just swapping stories about a certain tavern that it seems we both frequented when we were younger, weren't we?"

"No," Valen said. "We weren't."

"Do you have _any_ sense of humour?" Dakesh sighed. "Your friend was telling me all about how he helped these drow stand up against the Valsharess, if you must know."

She leaned in, close enough that her hip brushed Valen's. "How long's Deekin been at it?"

"A while," Dakesh answered. "He seems to be switching between obscenely happy songs and those sad enough to make stone cry. I'm rather hoping he'll move on to just happily obscene songs next."

Jaiyan gave him a long, thoughtful look over the rim of the tankard. "Why are you trying so hard tonight?"

"I don't know." He shrugged. "I'm surrounded by drow who are slowly getting drunk while still wearing many sharp and pointy weapons. Maybe it makes me nervous."

She snorted, and leaned back against Valen's shoulder. For once, he had left his armour off, and she could feel the heat of his skin through his tunic. "Mmm. You're warm."

Deekin's song drifted on to a sad, gentle conclusion, and when Jaiyan next meandered up to the innkeeper, he pushed across a tray and muttered something about not needing to pay him because the Seer was back. Jaiyan grinned and shrugged, and called over the thrum of conversation, "Thank you, but you might regret your kindness later."

The innkeeper smirked. "I won't be the one with the crushing headache, surfacer. All the same, you deserve it. You and the General both."

She nodded to him again, and gingerly wound her way back through the crowd. At the table, she discovered Deekin with the other two, his black eyes bright and his fingers tapping impatiently.

"Boss!" He motioned her closer. "Like the song?"

"You know I like that one. Even if it is far too sad." She laid the tray down carefully. "Having fun?"

He nodded. "Deekin not seen this place this lively for ages and ages. Though Deekin wonders where Imloth and Seer lady are. Or Nathyrra and other drow, Andaryn. Deekin not seen them yet tonight."

Jaiyan smirked. "Probably all doing the same thing. Not, I imagine, all with each other. Though you never know with drow."

"Boss."

"What? What _else_ do you think they're doing? Playing cards?"

"Stop," Deekin pleaded. "Deekin just came over to say hello."

"Sorry."

"Boss _isn't_."

She grinned over the rim of the tankard, and was rewarded when he finally gave in and rolled his eyes at her. Much later, when the air was stifling and heavy, Dakesh bade them a brisk goodnight. Deekin sidled back to the bar with his lute again, and Jaiyan listened as the dramatic, crashing first chords of one of his longer songs shuddered out. Left alone with Valen, she leaned forward, and swore when her elbow slipped along the table. "You've been quiet this evening."

He blinked, and the frown between his eyes slowly vanished. "Forgive me?"

"Anything. You're thinking about us leaving."

"Yes." His pale blue eyes flicked, down to the table and back up. "I want to leave. I do. I just…"

"I understand," she said. "You were here a long time."

"It's strange." He shrugged helplessly. "Last time we didn't exactly walk out of here."

"I think I may have walked a little further than you."

"Only because I got _shot_," he protested. "With an arbalest. And anyway, that's the most ridiculous thing I've _ever_ heard you get competitive about."

She laughed. "Forgive me?"

"Somehow, I'm sure."

A shadow slanted across the table, and Jaiyan looked up into the face of an armed, leather-clad drow female. Moving with lithe, easy grace, the female glided past the two empty chairs. "Forgive the intrusion. You are leaving, yes? Very soon?"

The words came easy and casual, the tone amiable. Jaiyan studied the drow's sharp, arresting features, and vaguely recalled her. Had she been in the temple, when the Valsharess attacked? Yes, perhaps, or maybe up in The Yawning Portal, afterwards.

"Yes," Jaiyan answered carefully.

The drow smiled, a flash of white teeth. "I am unsure of surfacer customs regarding…well. I have noticed that you returned with General Shadowbreath."

Sidelong, Jaiyan was aware of Valen arching both eyebrows. "Yes..?"

The drow turned, ran an appreciative glance across Valen's broad frame. "I have also noticed he has remained with you. So I suppose it must be you I should ask, surfacer. Would you deign to share him?"

Jaiyan blinked. _Share him? _Share_ him? Oh. _That's_ what this is about. _She gulped down a mouthful of ale, blinked again, and mumbled, "Share him?"

"Yes. He is _quite_ striking, isn't he?"

"Yes. Yes, he is." Very slowly, Jaiyan lowered the tankard. _Share him? Share her tiefling? _"But as…_gracious_…as your offer was, I won't be sharing him."

"Oh?" The drow smiled again. She reached out and touched Valen's shoulder, and Jaiyan briefly wondered how much time it would take to unsheathe her sword and slice off the drow's elegant hand. "Are you certain? I have long admired him. And I would take _very _good care of him."

"I'm sure you would." She grinned, all teeth. "And I'm sure you would enjoy it. He's very…attentive. However, he's also _mine_, and I'm not very good at sharing things that are mine."

"Ah? And if I were to ask him?"

"He'd say the same." Aware the ale was turning her foolishly bold, she gestured expansively. "Though you're most welcome to join our conversation. We were discussing the Valsharess, and, well…I suppose you know what happened to the Valsharess."

"Yes." The drow's hand played up the slope of Valen's shoulder until her fingers hovered far too close to the side of his neck. "Everyone knows of your bravery and prowess, surfacer."

"Good. Then I need hardly elaborate on how quickly and how, well, messily she died. Now get your hand away from him before I hack it off. He's _mine_, and that's it." Somehow, she kept her lips stretched into a smile. "I'm sure there's some other willing male in here for you to prey upon tonight." She did not exhale until the drow whirled and stalked away. Finally, she hooked up the tankard, drained the last two inches and realised that Valen was watching her with carefully suppressed amusement. "And _you_ can wipe that smirk right off your face, tiefling."

"Oh, I'm not laughing." The corners of his mouth curled up. "Beloved, did you have to be quite so…forceful?"

"What? She wanted me to _share_ you with her. Hand you over on loan like you're a post-horse to be given over to anyone who wants to ride you."

"She's a drow. Most drow think like that."

"Yes, well, I don't. And stop grinning."

"I'm sorry." He reached across, covered her hands with his. "I was just a little worried that I was going to have to pry you off her."

"You would've had to if she'd touched you again." Jaiyan sighed. "Sorry."

"Don't be. It's usually me who, ah, thinks jealous thoughts."

"I wasn't jealous, I was just…"

"Possessive?"

"No, I was…" She glared at him again. "Alright. Keep laughing."

"I wouldn't _dare_."

"And it was territorial. The word you were looking for to mock me with." Jaiyan grinned sheepishly.

"Only _gently_ mocking, my love, I assure you." He leaned in and kissed her, soft and deep and lingering. "I'm not going anywhere."

"I know." She shrugged again, aware of the heat in her face. "Well, at least she had the courtesy to _ask_."

Valen woke to rumpled sheets and Jaiyan, tangled next to him, face-up and snoring slightly. Carefully, he extricated himself from the naked sprawl of her limbs. His bare feet touched the cool stone floor, and he shivered. He dressed quickly and quietly, slung his flail across his shoulders, and left his hair loose. He paused long enough to move the water jug onto the small table near the bed before ducking out into the corridor.

He discovered the Seer alone in her chambers on the floor above. He started to say something about not wanting to disturb her, but she shook her head at him, smiled, and motioned him in.

"Sit down, Valen." Before he could ask, she added, "Imloth is at the practise field."

"This early?" He grinned. "His soldiers are going to adore him. I think half the city was in the tavern last night."

She sat opposite him, folded slim hands in her lap. "You are leaving today?"

"Yes." He stared down as his own hands, loose over his knees. "Seer, I…"

"I know," she said gently. "I think it is very unlikely that I will see you again."

The words hung between them, fragile, and Valen was suddenly aware of how thick his throat felt. "I know," he answered. "I knew that. It just…I don't think we will ever come down here again, unless we had to, because…"

"Hush." She reached out, briefly touched the back of his hand. "You don't need to think of excuses. There is no need."

"Will you be alright?"

"Yes. I will miss the surface." Her smile turned sad, and old. "I will miss the moonlight. I will miss you." She blinked, and her expression cleared, became serene again. "Tell me. Do you have plans, for when you reach the surface?"

"No. Well, I don't know. Nothing yet." He shrugged idly. "Nothing fixed."

"And you? What do you want?"

"I…" He looked across, and into her millpond eyes. As always, she waited for him, waited for him to gather his thoughts. "I want to keep her safe."

"Will you believe me when I say that you will?" One side of the Seer's mouth slanted up. "Of course not. But it's still true."

"That's easy for you to say," he protested mildly. "You're not the one who has to watch her go charging headlong into danger."

"And if she hadn't, when you met her, would you have been quite so interested?"

"No. And it shouldn't be different now. It just…"

"Is," the Seer finished. "I understand, Valen."

He scrubbed a hand through his loose hair. "Why do we do it, Seer?"

Her eyes sparkled. "In my case, because Eilistraee spoke to me. In yours…I suspect you're quite good at it."

Valen laughed, surprised and slightly relieved. "I'm going to miss you."

"I know. And I shall miss you."

Very gently, Valen lifted both her hands between his. "Thank you, Seer. For everything."

He did not mean Sigil, not entirely, and she must have understood. She smiled, and walked with him to the door. "I will see you before you go." She clasped his wrist. "Valen?"

"Yes?"

She leaned up, and her fingers brushed the side of his face. "Be safe."


	44. Chapter 44

_Well, here is the penultimate chapter, and with one more to go, it all feels a little strange since I feel like I've been writing this and its predecessor for ages. Anyway, thank you to everyone who's following it. Reviews are of course always welcome, and Bioware owns most things. _

_**Chapter Forty-Four: Daybreak**_

Mid-morning found Jaiyan slowly and solemnly dragging her leathers on. She straightened up too quickly, and her head spun. "Next time, could someone remind me that victory drinking is _always_ a bad idea, even when I think it isn't?"

Leaning against the windowseat, methodically cleaning his flail, Valen smiled. "I _did_ remind you."

"Oh." She hitched her belt on, adjusted her scabbard. "Well, you must've done a poor job of it."

"Undoubtedly." The loose fall of his hair barely hid his quick, amused grin. "Are you ready?"

"Yes. Me and my headache are ready to face the perils of the Underdark beside you once more, brave tiefling."

Valen groaned. "You sound worse than Deekin."

She ambled across to him, leaned against him for a long, welcome moment. "Forgive me?"

"Perhaps." He slung the flail across his shoulder and absently flicked his hair away from his eyes again. "It's getting too long."

"Hmm? Your hair?" She threaded her fingers through the heavy red strands. "Just tie it back."

"I do. It's still getting too long."

"I could braid it, if you like."

He frowned, but the corners of his mouth twitched. "No, thank you. Maybe you could cut it for me? Just an inch or so?"

"Anything my tiefling wants." She brushed a quick kiss against his temple. "When I'm feeling a little steadier, though, since I'd assume you'd want to keep both of your ears."

Outside, they discovered the city quiet, and the closest to peaceful Jaiyan guessed she had ever seen it. Lights gleamed behind the panes of the tavern, and the buildings nearby, and she could hear shouts from the forge, and sardonic retorts. Merchants milled in the market square, and called prices on fabrics and jewels. Behind, the temple rose high and dark and stern, flanked with pale torches and gleaming.

Valen's hand cupped over her shoulder. "Are you alright?"

"Yes." She nodded slowly, did not look away from where a small, lithe drow female haggled the price of a clutch of sparkling amethysts with a trader. "It…feels better, doesn't it?"

"Yes," he answered. "It does."

At the gates, the Seer waited, Imloth at her side, protectively close. Guards stood behind them, fanned out in a smooth dark crescent, hands near sword hilts, and eyes trained on the ground. Jaiyan glanced past them, noticed Deekin, both hands swiping at empty air as he regaled Nathyrra with some chattering tale. She hid her smile, noted Dakesh's smirk from where he stood, one shoulder against the stone arch, and both hands hooked around his belt. She tugged Valen's head down, and murmured, "Are we late?"

"No," the Seer answered archly. "I just felt compelled to make this a little more formal."

"Oh." Jaiyan scuffed her heels together. "I don't like formal."

Valen laughed. "You're a hero, my love. It won't kill you."

"Jaiyan." The Seer smiled, and it lit her pale eyes and the steep angles of her ebony face. "My city stands in no small part due to you, and your friends, so I merely wish to make it known that I stand very much in your debt."

She gulped down a quick breath, realised that the drow on the walls were looking down at her, and hoped no one expected any kind of speech. "Oh. Good. Thank you."

"I understand that we will likely never see you again, but you must know that you will always be welcomed into this city."

Jaiyan nodded slowly, aware that her throat was thick. "Thank you. I mean it…thank you."

Other words followed, pretty words to do with courage and salvation, and bravery against the darkness. Her gaze wandered to Imloth, and she saw him smiling, and how his eyes were fixed on the Seer as she spoke. Nathyrra added her own brisk thanks, and Jaiyan grinned, and retorted, "You nearly sound grateful, my friend."

Something flickered across Nathyrra's face before she returned a wolfish grin of her own. "Don't expect it to happen again, surfacer."

The gates swung ponderously open, and Jaiyan swallowed. Uneasiness settled into the pit of her stomach. She _knew_ she should be feeling excited and prickling with the anticipation of seeing the surface again, of feeling wind and rain against her face, of drinking ale brewed by human hands. Somewhere behind her, she heard the Seer and Deekin, and the kobold's piping voice as he promised to write something for her and for Imloth. She glanced back, in time to see the Seer clasping both of Valen's hands. His face was pale and sad, despite the smile that ghosted across his mouth. She turned away, suddenly struck by the gentle intimacy of the gesture.

She was his, and he was hers, but this small drow woman had saved him, and for that, he would always hold some quiet, special place in his heart for her.

"Jaiyan?" Valen clasped her shoulder, turned her. "What is it?"

"Nothing," she said, brightly. "I think I just realised something."

"Something?"

"Something that doesn't matter," she said honestly. "Something I already knew."

Valen blinked slowly. "I'm not quite sure…"

"It doesn't matter." She laced her fingers through his. "You're ready?"

"Yes."

She thanked the Seer again, and paused long enough to smile at Imloth. But the gates were open, and the grey shadows beckoned, and she knew that the longer she waited, the more painful leaving became.

_Leaving_, she had once thought, _should be done quickly and quietly and with the least amount of fuss and tears. _

_ Like running out into the darkness clutching a pack and wearing new leathers and a barely tested sword and not wanting to think about what that departure meant for her mother. _

_No_, she thought helplessly, viciously. _She knew. She _gave_ you leathers and the sword and the pouch of coin. She _knew_. _

"Boss?" Deekin's hand snaked into hers. "Let's go home."

"Yes." She summoned a smile. On her other side, Valen touched her hair, and her face, and she heard him ask again if she was alright. Under her feet, she felt the black stone, and a few more strides took her out under the archway, and into the darkness, and away from Lith My'athar.

* * *

Sitting with her legs crossed idly, Nathyrra leaned back in the windowseat and lifted the dagger. Thoughtfully and slowly, she cleaned the length of the sheath until the leather gleamed and the silver points masking the tip of the blade shone. She laid the weapon down, picked up the next one, and set to with cloth and oil again.

"Mistress?" The door swung open, and Andaryn paused, one hand against he frame, and a perturbed expression spoiling the sharp angles of his face. "You wanted to see me?"

"Yes." She looked up, smirked at him. "What happened to you? You look thoroughly confused."

"Yes." He kicked the door closed. "I think I am. I was at the practice fields, with your Seer's male, and a dozen or so young scouts who barely know which way round to hold a bow."

"His name is Imloth," Nathyrra pointed out archly.

"He wants me to help him, with the scout groups. He wants me to train them."

Nathyrra grinned, but kept her head bent over the dagger. "Why so shocked? You've trained recruits before, yes?"

"Yes. A long time ago."

"For the Valsharess?" she asked.

"Yes. Though I helped at the arena in Eryndlyn, as well." His eyebrows knotted. "Why would he want that?"

"Imloth?" She slid the dagger free of its sheath, admired it briefly. "Why not? You're capable, exacting, and surely you need _something_ useful to do?"

"When I'm not in your bed, I presume?" He smiled slightly. "I suppose. It just seems…odd. It was a request, and I…"

"It will seem less odd in time," she said, softly.

"Perhaps." He shook his head. "There are many capable, exacting males in this city. Why choose me?"

She crooked an insouciant eyebrow at him. "Why don't you ask him?"

"Why do that when I can sit and seethe instead?" Andaryn smiled lopsidedly. "Your city confounds me."

"I know. I found that at first, as well."

"You, Mistress? You who are so assured?"

"Yes, even me." She shot him a quick grin. "Come here."

"Oh? When I have been told again and again that in this place, this city of yours, I am not to be commanded?"

She heard the amused lilt in his voice, and found herself smiling. "You are in my bedchamber, male. Come here, and don't make me repeat myself."

Slowly, never once taking his gaze from her face, he approached the windowseat, and halted just out of arm's length. "As you command."

"Closer." She was _not_ going to reach out for him, she decided, no matter how long he stood there. She could smell him, clean skin beneath leather and metal, and the warm, rich scent that clung to his hair. "_Closer_, male."

He leaned in and kissed the tip of her ear. "Is that better?"

"Not yet." Nathyrra shivered pleasantly while his tongue traced along sensitive, delicate skin. She waited until his hands moved, lifting to cup her face. Wrapping both arms around his waist, she yanked and twisted in the same motion, spinning him onto the windowseat. His back hit the stone, and she heard him gasp. Seconds later she was on top of him, ignoring the press of buckles and edges and the hilt of his sword. She grabbed his wrists, swung them above his head, and murmured, "_That_ is better."

"Lolth above and below, Mistress. Did you _have_ to nearly split my head open in order to prove your point?" Andaryn grinned and arched his hips up against her. "You do move beautifully fast, though."

"You've survived worse, I'm sure." She lowered her lips to his, kissed him until he moaned into her mouth.

"Yes," he said, when she finally pulled away. "I suppose I have. Are you going to let go of me?"

Nathyrra gripped his wrists harder. "No," she mused idly. "I don't think so."

He was lean and muscled and agile enough to tip her off him, but instead, he just grinned and rocked his hips upwards again. She groaned, softly, and was briefly tempted to release him, to let him run his hands all over her.

"No?" Andaryn asked slyly.

"No," she echoed, and nipped at his ear. "This is far more enjoyable."

He dragged in a shaking breath. Tried to wrench his head to one side, but she teased the point of his ear again. He sighed her name, and she felt his whole frame shudder beneath her.

"Well, then," Andaryn said roughly. "It seems I am at your mercy."

* * *

Jaiyan stared down at her boots and wondered if counting every step might make the distance shrink at all. Days of slow, steady marching had slipped by, and the only burst of excitement had been offered up by a clutch of duergar whose attempt at banditry had been quite vehemently stalled by Valen's flail. The handful of goblins they encountered later barely counted, she decided; most of them had fled, and those brave enough to loiter had fallen swiftly. Beside her, Valen walked with wide, quick strides, and for once she was not inclined to complain, even when she had to half-jog to keep up. Deekin pattered along on her other side, and the mercenary stalked behind her, moving almost soundlessly.

"Boss?"

"Yes, Deeks?"

"What happens if we gets to platform, and it's been pulled up?"

"Why would it? I figured Durnan would leave it down and lock the door."

"Yes, but…"

"_No_, kobold. We are not discussing this." She grinned across at him. "Durnan left it down last time, Imloth said."

Valen grunted. "I still don't understand the wisdom of the trapdoor, or the platform, or the inn being built over it. I know about Halaster and Undermountain, but it still seems ridiculous."

"Ridiculous perhaps, my tiefling," she replied airily. "But if that platform wasn't there, we would never have met."

He sighed. "Your logic is damning as usual, my love."

"Cynic."

He paused long enough to grasp her hand. "Never, and you know it."

Grinning to herself, she matched his pace, and tried to push back her frustration; two days at least waited before them, along with the crumbling steps and arches of Undermountain. The day wore on, and a halt was called and camp made in a small stone chamber. Deekin scrounged wood from bits of old weapons, arrows and lances and shields, and two old chests, snapped apart and heaped up. A muttered spell set the pile ablaze, and after too many nights huddling around tiny fires, Jaiyan leaned in appreciatively, uncaring of how the heat stung the backs of her hands.

After a dinner of salted meat carried from Lith My'athar, Deekin curled up beside the fire, nearly drowsing, and Dakesh leaned beside the barricaded door, studiously cleaning his sword. When Valen retreated away from the flames, Jaiyan followed him, and smiled when he gestured her closer.

"You're looking forward to the sunlight," he said.

"More than you imagine." She settled herself against him, sighed when he shifted, letting her curl against the crook of his shoulder. "I'm glad we came down here. But I really, really want to see a real sky again."

He laughed. "I know what you mean."

She picked up one of his hands, toyed with his fingers, sliding her own between them, tracing the shape of the bones beneath. "The Seer," she said, hesitantly. "You care about her. A great deal."

"Yes."

"That was what I realised. In Lith My'athar."

He shifted so he could look down at her. "Why then?"

"I don't know. I told you I already knew, and I did. I suppose it's like me and Deekin. With fewer ballads. And less spelling lessons."

He laughed again, low and gentle. "Yes, and no. I spoke to her in Lith My'athar, sometimes often, sometimes not. Sometimes many days would pass between seeing her or speaking to her. But when I did, she was always the same."

"I understand." She lifted his hand, kissed his palm. "You'll be alright, won't you?"

"Yes," he answered. "I owe her a lot, nearly everything, and I always will. Not everything lasts, and I understand that." His fingers tightened around hers. "I want this to last."

She grinned, and nestled closer to him. "Of course it will. You're stuck with me forever, you realize?"

"Do you mean that?"

She heard his voice change, turn deeper, rougher. She was tempted to make some innocuous, silly remark, but something in his unwavering, chipped-ice eyes stopped her. "Yes," she said. "I've always meant that."

"I know," he murmured, haltingly. "I've just never heard you use the word _forever_ before."

Jaiyan pressed his hand between both of hers. "And I'm going to prove it to you the _instant_ we're alone."

He laughed, slipped his arm around her waist, and shook his head. "You don't need to prove it to me."

She sank against him, breathed in the familiar scent of steel and sweat and Valen. The long, gleaming ends of his red hair brushed her forehead. "But what if I _want_ to?"

* * *

The iron gates of Undermountain swung open, and Jaiyan could not quite suppress a sudden swell of relief when she saw the platform, hanging suspended and untenanted. With Valen's help, she leaned on the pulleys until the platform rose, leaving empty air beneath. Deekin sat with his feet swinging, eying the sickening drop with a horrifying lack of nerves. High above the stone floor, still swaying, the contraption swung into place. Stone steps led upwards, and she sprinted up them to the trapdoor. Hammered with one fist, waited half a heartbeat, and tried again. "Oh, come on."

"It be locked, Boss?"

She leaned up against it and shoved, and swore when it did not give way. "Yes." What little patience remained faded, and she pounded against solid wood until her fingers ached.

She thought she heard footsteps above, and then something metal clanking and snapping out of place. The trapdoor was heaved up, and the sudden spill of torchlight made her wince and blink. Past the glare, she made out the edges of drawn swords, and someone's legs, and the sweep of the stone wall behind.

"Durnan, it's us." She flung one hand up to shield her eyes. "You don't need to skewer us."

She heard the innkeeper's gruff tones in reply. "Can never be sure with what usually comes out of the Underdark." He clasped her hand, and heaved her up and into the portal room proper. "You alright, missy? Not bleeding to death or anything? Not being chased by some huge infernal monster?"

"No, and thank you _so_ much for caring." Still squinting, she stumbled. Heard the others clambering up the steps behind her. "Durnan," she said, quietly, and because she knew he was going to ask. "Imloth and the Seer…they're staying. In Lith My'athar."

Durnan nodded slowly. "I thought they might. How is he?"

"Still alive," she said, and heard the innkeeper's quiet sigh. "Fell in a river and tried to drink it all. Still, he saved our necks a fair few times."

"Darklings belong down there, I suppose."

"You're not fooling anyone, old man." She dug in her pack, found the wrapped bottle. Handed it across along with a gentle smirk. "Imloth asked me to give you this."

"What is it? Some strange drow poison?"

"Close enough. It's revenge for all the whiskey you made him drink."

Durnan laughed softly. "Did he say anything else?"

"That he hopes you have a drink for him."

Another nod, and Durnan smiled, sadly. "Suppose you're all starving, then?"

"Wasting away. Is it daytime?"

"Early morning." He coughed, and his eyes flickered beneath knotted brows. "Go on, then. Get yourselves upstairs."

She wanted to clasp his shoulder, or his hand, but she knew he hated such displays, particularly in front of observers, so she grinned and said, "Do you want to hear about the invisible dead vengeful spirits we fought now or later?"

"_Later_. My nerves can only take so much at this time of the day."

"Is that a promise, old man?"

"Anything to make you stop talking at me." Durnan glared good-naturedly. "Now get yourselves moving. I'll have some food prepared."

Jaiyan grabbed Valen's wrist and hauled him across the chamber. Through the door and up the stairs, down the corridor and into the taproom. On any other day, she might have been tempted to aim straight for the corner table, but the high beamed ceiling and human patrons seemed strange, and besides, she could see open air through the windowpanes. Six more steps took her out through the door and into the cool morning beyond. Aware of Valen's laughter, and Deekin muttering something about being embarrassed in public again, she tipped her head back and breathed in. Chill air freighted with the scent of woodsmoke flooded her mouth. A slight breeze touched the filthy, sweat-streaked mop of hair pinned at the nape of her neck.

Valen's hands settled on her shoulders. "Feel better?"

"Mmm. Much better." She tilted her head back far enough to grin at him. "I never knew Waterdeep's sky could look quite so enthralling."

He laughed again and kissed her forehead. "You know, I think I know what you mean."

She let herself stare up at the rippling grey clouds for another long moment. She needed to corner Durnan again, find out how much of the season they had wasted beneath the earth, find out how Waterdeep fared. _Hells, _she thought idly, _before all that, a bath and a change of clothes might in order. _"Valen?"

"Yes?"

"Did you have any plans for the rest of the day?"

"Nothing I can't postpone, I'm sure."

Deekin groaned. "_Boss. _Deekin promises to not feel at all left out if Boss and Goat-man leave. Now. In fact Deekin _prefer_ to be left out."

Jaiyan laughed at his mournful expression. "I'll find you later?"

"Yep."

In the taproom, she purloined a key from Durnan, along with a tray with sliced apple and spiced wine. After she finally wrestled the door open, she left the tray on the table, and bolted to the window. She flung it open in time to hear Valen laughing, swung round, and demanded, "And what exactly is so hilarious?"

"You." He closed the door. "You really did miss the surface."

"Yes." She shrugged helplessly. "I know it sounds stupid, but it was so dark down there. Not like last time."

"What was different?"

"Not seeing what we were fighting was a constant niggle, I have to admit." She grinned, but she recalled the dragon's skull, vacant and still. "I don't know. It just felt rather hopeless for a while."

One side of his mouth slid up. "Compared to venturing out against the Valsharess' allies, knowing the city would be laid to siege, and finding a dracolich in a very big cave?"

She waved a hand dismissively. "I was suitably distracted by other things for a lot of the time. Hardly mattered."

"Oh? What kind of things?"

"Snooping for compliments, are we?" She crossed the floor and reached up, twining her arms around his neck. "Something to do with stubborn tieflings."

"Stubborn? From you that is _definitely_ a compliment." Very gently, he traced the lines of her face, the tangles of brown hair escaping around her collar. His fingers travelled across the thin lacing of scars across her throat, and he stopped.

"Valen?" Jaiyan nuzzled into his hand. "What is it?"

"Nothing." He smiled, and shook his head. "I…can't quite decide if we're incredibly lucky, or you're simply far too forgiving."

"Oh, no. Not again." She guided his head down, and kissed him until his arms locked around her. "No talking, tiefling. Understand? At least not talking like that."

She urged him backwards, and he laughed, complying. When the back of his legs hit the chair, he swayed, and she pushed him down. Jaiyan followed him, her mouth still sealed against his. She swung her legs around him, settled herself happily on his lap.

"Mmm." Valen's smile turned wicked. "Nice view."

She leaned sideways slightly, caught his tail. Gently stroked the warm, sinewy length of it until she brought the spaded end up to her mouth. "Now. We said something about proving?"

* * *

Deekin stared down into his drink and concluded that simply not having the weight of his packs strapped between his wings was a significant improvement. He looked up and across the table and into the mercenary's pale, severe face. "Dakesh?"

"Mmm?"

"You looks too serious."

"Mmm." The mercenary smiled, but it barely moved the hard line of his mouth, and certainly did not touch his dark eyes. "I've been thinking."

"About dead spirits?"

"About the Underdark, I suppose." He linked his hands on the table. "I admit, I didn't think they'd just let us go."

"The Seer?"

"The other drow in the city." He shrugged. "I'm not complaining. I just…kept expecting there'd be some catch."

"Catch like an ambush?" Deekin nodded sagely. "Deekin thinks like that sometimes. Then when things work out alright, Deekin all the happier."

Dakesh laughed, and it sounded odd, brittle. "I suppose that's one way of looking at it."

"Besides," Deekin said. "Seer lady never let that happen."

"Yes, but she's still a drow, and…" Dakesh scowled. "Never mind."

"Deekin understands." Deekin let his gaze wander across the taproom, past the soldiers clustered near the door, back to the fireplace, and finally to where the high windows were flooded with sunlight. "Deekin going to ask innkeeper if he can play tonight."

Dakesh smirked. "Did you finish the dragon song?"

"Nope. Not yet."

"I've been meaning to ask. I know I helped your friend hack its skull away from the rest of it. What were you doing before I got there?"

"Oh." Deekin grinned. "Deekin and Boss inside skull knocking out some glass-crystal phylactery thing on inside of skull."

"Right." The mercenary sighed. "Of course you were."

"Yep. Deekin even had to get on Boss's shoulders to reach it."

"This is the point where I wish I'd never wanted to indulge my curiosity, isn't it?" Dakesh lifted his tankard, drained it. "And to think, you three actually took down Mephistopheles."

"Well…we only did that because Boss hamstrung him and then Goat-man smacked his head in."

Dakesh groaned. "You're heroes."

"_And_ went to Sigil. And beat up a medusa once. But Goat-man wasn't there for that one."

"I'm convinced, don't worry." The mercenary waited while one of the innkeeper's girls brought him a new drink, frothing at the brim and smelling rich. Deekin watched his hands, long and lean and pale, as they wrapped around the tankard. "I've been meaning to ask you something."

"Deekin listening."

"I…well." Dakesh grinned, and to Deekin it seemed a little raw, a little uncertain. "I'm thinking that now I'm back up here, and there aren't drow around being treacherous, that perhaps I might do something. And since your Seer is back down _there_, I don't rightly know anyone else who might open a portal back to Sigil for me."

Deekin nodded slowly. "Dakesh could've asked Seer Lady."

"No, I...what I mean is…I don't think I want to go back to Sigil. Not yet." The mercenary shrugged, a quick, elegant motion. "I've been thinking about this city up north. Your innkeeper friend spoke of it. Neverwinter. Been there?"

"Yep," he said. "Went there before Sigil. It be a nice city."

"Any plans to see it again?"

Deekin stared down at the table, entirely unprepared for the sudden, strange way his throat seized up. He knew what the mercenary was asking, and for one long moment, he was tempted. _Other places_, he thought. He remembered years ago, sitting in the caves, down in the darkness, and dreaming of other places. Other places he had not been able to name, and could never really even imagine, but _other places_ that he would see and write about. He remembered how the night air had smelled outside Old Master's caves, all sharp with starlight and the snow that covered the high hills, and for another moment, he was tempted.

"Not yet," Deekin muttered, and looked up into the mercenary's pale, angled face. "Deekin…Deekin likes you. Deekin would like to travel. But…"

_But Boss needs Deekin_, he thought, and he could not shake away the clinging feeling that yes, she still did, and she still might, for a long time. And he liked being needed, especially by her, and especially after the Underdark and Sigil.

He remembered how they had sat in the Valley of the Winds and listened to the hot air scream around the high sandstone cliffs. How the sky had been pale and yellow, and how he could still feel the hammer-on-anvil press of the sun. How every breath had tasted dry and gritty, and how they had stared down at the coiling steps that had descended into the ancient Netherese city, and she had said that he could not leave her, not then, because she needed him.

Needed him to help beat some sense into Heurodis, but even so, needing was needing, Deekin decided.

"It's alright," Dakesh said, and grinned, that same uneven grin. "I just figure that if I'm stuck here awhile, I might as well have more of a wander around and see what I can find."

"Dakesh needs to be careful on the coast. Lots of bandits."

"I'll manage, I'm sure." The mercenary snorted. "I'm not going right _now_."

"No, but…" Deekin shrugged and wondered why his stomach felt tight and uncomfortable. "Maybe Deekin could see you in Neverwinter? Later?"

Dakesh raised his tankard, and Deekin noticed the slight, almost-not-there change around his eyes and mouth that turned his smile real. "Neverwinter and later."


	45. Chapter 45

_So here it is, the very last chapter, which admittedly is more like an epilogue, really. Bioware as always owns nearly everything. Reviews are always welcome. And most importantly, I'd like to extend a huge, huge thank-you to everyone who's read, reviewed and generally supported this story :) _

_**Chapter Forty-Five – Spring**_

Afternoon sunlight streamed in between the open curtains, and through the lodged-open gap, Jaiyan could hear cart wheels against cobbles and the shrieking calls of seagulls and a horse running too fast. Stretched out lazily against Valen, she contemplated the virtue of never moving again. Her clothes were strewn carelessly across the floor, and she had little desire to yank on garments that still smelled of damp rock and dust. And besides, the spare sets at the bottom of her pack were likely creased and needing patching and in any case, the warm and drowsy tiefling beside her seemed in no mood to move anytime soon.

"Valen?"

His tail slid up and around her leg. "Mmm-hmm?"

"With you around, I think in the summer I may have to dispense with blankets altogether."

He laughed. "Does it get very warm here?"

"Warm but not very hot. We'll probably live."

"Oh, that's reassuring." Absently, he combed his fingers through her hair, teasing the tangles apart. "Does it feel strange to you, being back?"

"Yes, it does. Right now I want to do nothing but lie here with you, have an incredibly huge and lazy meal later, and decide that I never want to leave Waterdeep again. And then of course, probably in about eight days or so, I'll be clawing at the walls wanting something ridiculous and probably life-threatening to do."

"Bards call that wanderlust, don't they?"

"Or stupidity." She leaned into the gentle pressure of his hand. "Deekin just calls it our next crazy choice. You'll come with me, won't you?"

"In eight days? Is this at all flexible, or am I at my lady's mercy?"

"Funny man." She grinned at him. "I don't know when. Whenever."

"I've been thinking." He leaned up, his hair threading down the solid lines of his arm and shoulder. "Hear me out?"

She was slightly tempted to say something inane, but he was looking at her steadily from beneath lowered eyebrows, so she simply nodded, and said, "Course I will."

Valen curled an arm around her, drew her closer. "You know what I said, on the way back to Lith My'athar, about how I wanted to be able to give you something?"

"Of course."

"Well, I…" His blue eyes flicked away, then up to ceiling, before returning to her. "I wondered if you wanted…well, me."

She smiled and rolled against him, nuzzling under his chin. "I thought I just had you, didn't I? Twice."

"Well, yes, but…" His fingers slipped over her shoulder, tightened in her hair. "I was wondering if you wanted it to be a little more permanent? A little more official?"

Jaiyan extricated herself from under him so she could see his face properly. He looked…_nervous?_ His whole frame was tense, and his eyebrows were still knotted. _And did he just… _"Valen, are you..?"

"Will you marry me?" he blurted.

Jaiyan laughed. "You look petrified, my tiefling."

"I was. And I still am. You haven't answered yet."

"Yes," she said, seriously, and without having to consider either way. "Yes. I will."

He smiled then, slow and shy. "I would like that. Very much."

"So would I. Being married to you, I mean. Not to me. I can't imagine why anyone would want to be married to me." She giggled, tried to suppress it, and failed miserably. "Sorry."

"Don't apologise, foolish woman. Are you sure?"

"What kind of question is that?" She flicked one his horns. "Of course I'm sure. I mean, who else is going to put up with me for the rest of my life?"

"Me, I hope," he said, low-voiced.

"Valen." She looked at him then, simply _looked_ at him, her gaze lingering on the vivid spill of his hair, on the severe planes and angles of his face. "Always you. _Only_ you."

He cupped her chin and kissed her, sweet and slow. "That pleases me, my love. More than you know."

"Oh, I don't know. I could have a fairly good guess, I think." She was laughing again, hard enough that her shoulders were trembling. "When did you want to do it?"

"What? You want details?" He grinned. "I just got over the terror of just _asking_. And it still didn't come out entirely as I'd hoped."

"Oh? Were you going to shower me in sparkling jewels and go down on one knee?"

Valen groaned. "You'd've laughed at me if I'd done that."

"Well, yes." She traced the shape of his face, brushed her thumbs along his jaw. "It came out entirely alright."

"Oh?" His eyes glittered wickedly. "You've been proposed to enough times to know that, my lady?"

"Well, never by a tiefling before." When he locked his arms around her and pinned her, she shrieked. "Alright, _never_. By anyone. Apart from you. You didn't actually think so, did you?"

"No." He kissed her again before letting her sit up. "No one else would dare."

"You've got a nasty sense of humour when you put some effort into it, you know." She wound his tail around her wrist, idly stroked at the end. The space between them seemed suddenly, absurdly vast, so she burrowed under his arm and quite firmly attached herself to his chest.

He did not laugh, only let himself sink back onto the sheets, taking her with him. For long, lazy moments, they lay like that, wrapped around each other, listening to each other breathe. His hands trailed up and down her back, pausing occasionally to thread through her hair.

"Valen?"

"Mmm?"

"Are you still hungry?"

"Starving." He smiled. "If you want to go down and tell your kobold, you're allowed."

She grinned sheepishly. "Ah-ha. Was it that obvious?"

"In some things you completely lack subtlety, my love."

Jaiyan rolled onto her side, traced small circles on his chest. "You don't mind?"

"No," he said gently. Slowly, almost wonderingly, he ran his hands up her arms, clasped them over her shoulders. "Your shoulders are so small."

"You're noticing this _now?_" Slightly reluctantly, she disentangled herself from him. "Come and find me soon?"

"Of course."

Jaiyan dug around in her pack for a clean shirt, found one that was that washed-out grey colour all her shirts seemed to fade into. She noticed that one whole side of it was wrinkled, shrugged, and pulled it on anyway. She eschewed the leathers, and tugged on an aging dark blue tunic, buckled her sword on over the top. Lifting her head, she noticed Valen leaning up on one elbow and grinned. "If that's some fiendish plot to get me to stay in here with you, then I am for once immune to your charms."

He blinked innocently. "What plot?"

"You, being all deliberately seductive."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Of course not." She was in danger of collapsing into laughter again, so she grabbed his horns and kissed him. "Don't be too long."

* * *

Downstairs, she discovered the taproom almost deserted. Sunlight poured through the windows, and she could smell new bread and woodsmoke. She crossed the floorboards, and realised that her heart was still jumping madly. _Well, he'd always _said_ he wanted marriage in the end, hadn't he? _

_ Yes, but he might've changed his mind. _

_ Yes, but he wouldn't, because you _know_ him. _

Jaiyan blinked and shook her head briskly. Accepting a tankard from the girl at the bar, she approached Deekin's table, nestled in the corner, and smiled. He was writing, as she had suspected, his quill stabbing out his spidery, jagging writing on the parchment beneath. "Hey, Deeks."

"Boss?" He looked up, black eyes gleaming. "Deekin has some news."

"Really? So do I."

"Really? Boss wants to go first?"

She tugged her stool closer to the table. "Ah…I just got myself betrothed."

"Betrothed?" Deekin shot bolt-upright. "With Goat-man?"

"Who else, Deeks?"

"Deekin not know." He dropped the quill. "Just _now?_"

She nodded. "Just now."

"Boss be _betrothed?_" His teeth flashed in a broad grin. "So Boss going to have to be all grown-up now?"

"Very funny, kobold." She glowered over the rim of the tankard. "Look, Deeks. I just wanted to tell you because…well, I don't want it to change anything. Between us, I mean. I still…you know."

"Deekin knows. Goat-man good for Boss. Also good at hitting things for Boss." He tapped his claws together thoughtfully. "Uhm…Deekin now rather glad about his own news."

"Why?"

"Well, Deekin was talking with Dakesh. Dakesh be leaving soon, to travel." His gaze held with hers, steady and unwavering. "Deekin almost wanted to go with him. Almost. But…Deekin wants to stay. Want to stay even more, now."

"Oh." She stared down into the tankard, unprepared for the sudden sting of guilt. "Oh, gods. Deekin, I don't want to _make_ you stay. I don't _own_ you."

He tilted his head. "Sort of do, Boss. Like Deekin sort of owns Boss."

"You know," she said, carefully, "If you want to, you could go with him."

"Deekin thought about. But then Deekin thought, what if Boss needs Deekin?"

She swallowed, almost painfully. "Deekin…"

"Deekin will look for Dakesh," he said. "In the future, when Boss gets eaten by monsters."

"Oh, gods above." Jaiyan glared. "Why are you always so adamant that I'm going to get _eaten_ by something?"

Deekin shrugged innocuously. "Don't know, Boss."

She bit her lip. "Glad you're staying, kobold. I'd miss you."

"Deekin not going anywhere yet. Besides, Deekin wants to see Boss in a dress for a whole day. That be worth writing about."

"Very funny."

"It not be a joke, Boss. How you spells 'matrimony'?"

"I'm not telling you."

"But Deekin needs to practise writing it for afterwards." He curled a hand around his quill again. "Can Deekin sing?"

She grinned. "Right now? Go ahead."

He sighed, long-suffering. "Boss being deliberately awkward, Deekin suspects."

"Of course you can sing."

"Can Deekin write new song to sing?"

"Well, I was hoping you would. I don't think there are many in your boundless repertoire that are generally for use in weddings, are they?"

"Depends what kind of wedding, Boss," he answered sagely.

Jaiyan snorted. "Duly noted."

"Boss?"

"Yes, Deekin?"

"Deekin be happy for you. Boss be happy?"

"Yes." She found herself smiling again. "Yes. Very."

Deekin reached across the table and touched the back of her hand. "Good."

* * *

The day meandered into a cool, indolent evening. The cobalt glow of dusk brought a brief squall of rain, rattling against the panes. A merchant in fur-trimmed robes with a veritable phalanx of servants breezed in through the doors, demanding dinner and ale and rooms, stealing Durnan's attention. Idly watching as the innkeeper shouldered through the press, Jaiyan decided their news could wait. _Besides, he's going to want to howl with laughter about it, so we might as well make sure he's not too busy at the time. _

The door swung open again, and Dakesh glided in. He made it halfway across the floor before Deekin grabbed his wrist and hauled him over to the corner table, already chattering.

The mercenary tugged his hood down, revealing tousled dark hair and slight flush against his pale skin. "You're getting _married?_"

"Not right this very moment," Jaiyan answered mildly. She pushed a tankard across the table to him and sank back against Valen's shoulder. "How was the city?"

"Quiet."

"You sound suspicious."

He smiled crookedly. "Usually I am. No, it was…good." He lifted the tankard. "Where will you go next? Do you know yet?"

"Oh, we'll just see where the road takes us, I suppose."

"Yes," Valen muttered. "Because we all know how well _that_ turned out last time."

"Yep," Deekin said, nodding. "But at least last time, Boss found a big red dragon."

"Big red dragon," Dakesh echoed. "Really."

"Yep. Boss saved the lady dragon's eggs."

Somewhere between the kobold's excited and unnecessarily complicated telling of the dragon and her eggs, and Dakesh's one-upping tale of fighting a legion of balors, the sky darkened. Another round of drinks were emptied, and the mercenary excused himself, murmuring something about wanting to be up early enough to see the dawn over the river. Deekin scooped up his lute, and wove his way through the crowd to the hearth. When he struck out a chiming, plaintive set of chords, bright and fragile even over the low burr of conversation, Jaiyan smiled. The notes that followed were light and delicate and inescapably sad. She nestled herself into the crook of Valen's shoulder and breathed in, enjoying the scent of soap and clean skin beneath his clothes. "It's his dragon song."

"Yes."

Absently, she picked up Valen's hand, twined her fingers through his. "Valen?"

"Mmm?"

"What do you want me to wear?"

He laughed. "Anything you want. Except riding leathers, and no chainmail."

"Picky tiefling." Jaiyan traced the chiseled shape of his hand, followed the faint trails of old scars. She glanced up, saw that he was looking down at her with a familiar kind of yearning in his face. She smiled, and murmured, "Any other rules, preferences or suggestions?"

"Blue," Valen said. "I like you in blue."

*_The End*_


End file.
